


push me (until i break)

by stuckonyoo



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Cheating, F/F, Friends With Benefits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23705053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuckonyoo/pseuds/stuckonyoo
Summary: “If I agree to this and kiss you, will you regret it?”“Probably,” slips out in an unintentional, blind moment of honesty. “Are you going to kiss me?”Sana questions again if this is a good idea, getting involved with a girl who has a girlfriend and no less have that girl be Im Nayeon. But Sana doesn’t think Nayeon is a bad person, not really. And this is just sex.Does she really have anything to be worried about?“Probably.”or, a sanayeon friends with benefits au
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Minatozaki Sana, Im Nayeon/Yoo Jeongyeon
Comments: 66
Kudos: 235





	1. Chapter 1

_PREVIEW_

Nayeon isn’t sure when she started hurting. Only that she does, and Jeongyeon can’t help anymore.

They spend more time apart. Less time than they did when they were friends, and just friends, before physical affection even became a comfortable occurrence between them.

Nayeon studies in the library, unable to focus at the dorm. Jeongyeon goes out and has new friends now, friends Nayeon knows she probably wouldn’t get along with. There’s nothing wrong with them, they’re just not Jeongyeon or Jihyo, and friends like Jeongyeon and Jihyo are all Nayeon’s really open to having.

  
Nayeon is hurting. Jihyo is in London. Talking to Jeongyeon is becoming impossible. And it’s not an excuse, it isn’t. But she kisses someone else.

_PROLOGUE_

  
Nayeon wants Jeongyeon to bite, scratch, claw – until her body reflects how raw, how tender she feels on the inside.

“No,” Nayeon huffs out, a tone that repels Jeongyeon from between her thighs. “ _Wait_.”

Jeongyeon lifts up her head, sweaty and breathless, a slight flaw in her usual stoic expression. Crawling up and settling her knees either side of Nayeon’s hips, eyes bleak in focus, Jeongyeon slowly moves forward to kiss her.

Nayeon tries to feel it, the blooming adoration in her chest she once felt the first weeks this happened, the first few weeks she enjoyed it – Jeongyeon creeping between her sheets with the offer of soft words and warm touches, back before Jeongyeon’s delicately placed lips became mechanised and her own responses became exaggerated.

Nayeon tries to feel it, to relive, to find _bliss_.

Nayeon isn’t sure why she bothered kissing Jeongyeon back.

“Okay?” Jeongyeon hushes into her mouth, as if any problem, any immediate need that Nayeon may have held had been silenced by her lips, her kiss. But Nayeon— she can barely feel any pressure from Jeongyeon’s mouth, from Jeongyeon’s _anything_ , and a whine slips from her throat before she’s able to get a grip on it.

_She does not want to be loved, she does not want to be loved._

Jeongyeon shifts against her, her hands flush against Nayeon’s skin now, but—

It’s not enough. Her relationship with Jeongyeon has never really been enough.

The harsh burning in Nayeon’s chest, creeping upwards towards the back of her throat; it starts to become too intense for her to swallow, to push down, _suppress_.

“Don’t kiss me,” Nayeon whines, pushing against Jeongyeon’s forehead and squirming beneath her glossed touch. “Hurt me.”

(Jeongyeon doesn’t).


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im not gonna pretend i know where this story is going

NAYEON 

Nayeon has never been a great student. She prides herself on being able to grasp the learning material quickly, but has always struggled in the application of her intelligence, and articulating her understanding of the content. Therefore, never testing well. 

It sucks, because Nayeon feels as if she never has anything to show for how hard she works in college, how hard she’s worked throughout her entire education; motivating herself has become harder now in the state of her declining mental health than it ever has been.

Her parents attempt to be supportive, try to sound interested in her life, what she’s doing, how she’s feeling. They call sometimes after they’ve all sat down as a family and shared conversation over dinner; almost as if she’s an afterthought. It should bother her more, she knows, but she’s always suspected her younger sister is the child her parents have been banking on anyway.

They’ll ask if she’s learning anything, if she’s sure she doesn’t want to change her studies. _It’s never too late you know, there’s plenty of people who switch to a more serious profession when they’re a little bit older._ They both know it’ll turn the call sour, and maybe that’s their intention. She supposes it’s better to keep bickering on the trivial things, though, rather than to address the elephant in the room - like the reason Jihyo is the only friend they ask about now.

Despite her parents' blatant indifference to her education, Nayeon still feels compelled to impress them. To make them believe their money is being well spent, believe in _her_ and her _choices,_ including her decision to move all the way across the country for reasons she’s spent the last few months trying not to regret _._ Nayeon’s parents stopped trusting in her choices the same day she'd confessed to being gay in a panicked, hysterical meltdown - deciding that loving girls was _one_ of them.

Truth is, Nayeon does regret it. She’d been naive enough to believe being so far from home would allow her to grow as a person outside of her parent's image, and perhaps it would be, if that were the reason she chose this college in the first place. No, of course it wasn’t. She’d been a coward, and scarpered between Jeongyeon's legs the moment she found out Jihyo had been accepted into a university in England, and the threat of being left behind felt all that little bit too real. 

It’s awful. She doesn’t even live on the same Campus as Jeongyeon and rarely even sees her. This she’s made sure to tell her parents, in some pathetic attempt at owning her choice to come here, and separating it from Jeongyeon. Somehow, it makes the distance feel doubled, and Nayeon’s certain she’s never felt more alienated in her life.

College has been a lot of forcing herself into doing things she doesn’t want to do, and a lot of spontaneous crying. But one thing relieving about college despite how incredibly overwhelmed she feels here, is that Nayeon knows she’s not the only one prone to some uncontrollable crying whilst in public.

She’s sitting in the library, second floor, directly opposite a girl who’s cried in front of her more times than Nayeon herself can count. The girl’s pretty, that’s what Nayeon had noticed once her initial alarm had faded, gradually desensitising to the girl’s sobs overtime with each occasion she bore witness. (Now Nayeon knows the crying is only temporary, she feels a little less terrible for choosing not to interfere).

She often watches this girl studying instead of focusing on her own work, pondering how someone’s spine can contort into such an unnatural bend, and how that could possibly be comfortable. This girl, with dark shoulder-length hair and round glasses falling off her nose, has remained hunched over her notes, unmoving, for the better part of forty-five minutes. 

The foreign text the girl has written is entirely too complicated for Nayeon to decipher based on her little knowledge of the Japanese alphabet, and the awkward angle she’s peering over it at - but judging by the vacant look in the girl’s eyes, perhaps even _she_ is struggling to understand her own notes.

She’s not crying today. Or at least, isn’t yet.

Nayeon can’t help but yearn to know this girl, to know if the pressure of performing well academically is the only thing making her feel down, if at all. Maybe she’s just broken up with her boyfriend instead, or just misses her family. Maybe studying in a foreign country is taking its toll. Maybe, she has no reason to be upset as often as she is, much like Nayeon herself. Maybe something really terrible has happened to her. 

Huh. 

Nayeon thinks she must be lonely to see a girl she’s only known to cry and crave to be her friend. 

* * *

The day she discovers Sana Minatozaki looks exceptionally good under purple lighting, Nayeon’s been drinking and is feeling particularly self-indulgent. 

Nayeon has never been comfortable ogling girls in public. Even into her adult life, a residual adolescent fear of being caught doing anything overtly gay has kept her from looking now, as a (kind of) out lesbian with a girlfriend. It’s just not something she’s allowed of herself before, but Sana Minatozaki - the kind of girl who’s far too attractive for anyone’s good - is definitely worth starting for.

Injunction with how she’s always been conscious of the way she's interacted with girls before, her eyes feel clumsy when she glances over at Sana with the intention of enjoying the view. Despite herself, it doesn’t take long for the slope of Sana’s hips to catch her attention. As her eyes rake back up Sana’s body, Nayeon’s heart jumps at the discovery that Sana is already watching her. 

Almost instinctively, Nayeon darts her eyes away from her — which she realises only makes her look _guilty_ , like she _had_ been checking her out. Which is, well yeah, so maybe she was, but the intention wasn’t to get caught, and Nayeon refuses to seem so sleazy.

Glancing back, Nayeon catches Sana’s eyes yet again, but, predictably, fails to hold them. 

_Fuck._

Sloshing the ice around her glass with a straw, Nayeon redirects her attention to her drink. She attempts to look casual where she’s sitting, bored even, like the small interaction was nothing but coincidental – Nayeon had just so happened to be looking in Sana’s general direction when their eyes met, and there had been nothing more to it.

In truth, it doesn’t take much effort on Nayeon’s part to look like she doesn’t want to be here, considering the resting face her mother’s genetics blessed her with. Nayeon supposes naturally looking irritated has it perks, because although she’s a young girl alone in some shitty bar, (an ideal target for loud, boisterous men with an appetite for peer-approval), no one has braved approaching her just yet.

Which is what she wants. To be alone. It is. 

Except now that she’s caught Sana Minatozaki’s attention, she kind of wants Sana to do something about it. 

Nayeon’s bringing the glass to mouth and taking the straw between her lips when she decides she resents the nature of human curiosity. It’s entirely likely that Sana Minatozaki isn’t looking at her anymore, and it wouldn’t really take much to check, just a quick glimpse in Sana’s direction… but something about _wanting_ to look as much as she does is putting her in a mood. 

God, she feels like a teenager. Or, well, _young_ , and Nayeon hasn’t spent half her life wishing to be older only to still feel like a child at an age she almost couldn’t wait to reach. 

The sensation remains persistent, compelling, as if Sana’s presence across the bar is calling for her attention and she really has no choice in the matter but to turn her head. She’s bound to look over eventually and as bristling as that thought is, here’s another issue Nayeon is having with that: what if she does peek and Sana _is_ still watching her? Nayeon wouldn’t know what to do. 

What she does know is this: she probably shouldn’t look back at Sana again. What good could come from it? It’ll either be awkward and she’ll look like a freak, or Sana will take it as an open invitation to come over, which… Nayeon can’t decide is better or worse. 

Yet, it’s _because_ Nayeon knows she shouldn’t that it’s now kind of all she wants to do. 

Nayeon knows two things about Sana Minatozaki: She parties a lot, and she's probably gay. 

Nayeon had been surprised at the reach in which Sana Minatozaki's name had seemed to spread, because it only took a few weeks for her to land herself on Nayeon's radar when Nayeon first got here. Nayeon has actually already met Sana before, in passing, pressing up against the sweaty bodies belonging to the students housed in the Redwood block on Campus first week of college. 

Sana had been building a crowd at some dumb party, everyone too new to their surroundings, to the new faces, to really let themselves go as Sana had. It was a lot of people looking up to her, a lot of people trying to force themselves to get involved, and a lot of people looking at Sana like she’d grown a second head, disbelieving that someone could be so brazen in defiance of new experiences. 

Nayeon had just assumed she’d had too much to drink and too soon, because the party had barely come to life by the time Sana was swinging off some girls lips. Jeongyeon had been running late which left Nayeon lingering awkwardly in the corner, cup tight to her lips, and that had been the night she found out 1) who Sana Minatozaki was, and 2) that Sana had a reputation.

The only people who had known each other back then were people who had migrated from the same high school, so despite being a completely new face to Nayeon, Sana was _not_ a new face to them. _She fucks girls at parties_ , she’d been told. _And she fucks them again when she’s sober, too._

Nayeon can’t say she wasn’t, and still isn’t, intrigued. She can’t even say she hadn’t thought about it since then, hadn’t thought about it the second she spotted Sana in this bar. She wonders, still, if that's the reason Sana is out tonight - to find someone to take home - and an awful, horrifying part of Nayeon _hopes_ it’s true.

Closing her eyes and exhaling briskly, Nayeon attempts to ignore the urge to check over her shoulder. She’s dying to look over.

 _It’s going to be a long night,_ Nayeon thinks, sighing, before caving.

She turns her head.

* * *

(Hours later, Nayeon will follow Sana into the girl's bathroom. She’ll have good intentions, but underestimate just how much of a force Sana Minatozaki can be. 

Sana’s friends leave early, but Sana stays behind to make good on her promise to buy her new friend a drink.

Nayeon drinks, and she drinks, and drinks.)

* * *

“How did you know I’m into girls?” Sana asks into her mouth, adjusting her position to accommodate space for Nayeon’s body to join her. 

Overestimating her sobriety, Nayeon allows herself to be pulled through the door and partially skids across the wet floor tiles, her teeth clanking painfully against Sana’s in the process.

Once stabilized by Sana’s firm grip under her arms, Nayeon allows herself a whine at the sharp stinging sensation gripping her mouth. Separating briefly, (Nayeon to inspect any possible damage done to her tooth and Sana to close the door behind them), Nayeon rubs her finger along her front teeth to soothe the ache. She feels disorientated and kind of like her body is on fire, but Nayeon can't rule out the possibility that it's more Sana than the alcohol that's putting her in a tizzy.

“Like it’s a secret?” Nayeon looks confused. She feels it, too. “Everyone knows you fuck girls.”

“I like them _too_ , you know,” Sana berates, leaning over Nayeon to fiddle with the lock behind her. Like this, Nayeon can smell Sana’s perfume, and it’s going straight to her head. “I don’t _just_ fuck them.”

Nayeon opens her mouth to say something, feeling guilty at reducing Sana to the rumours she’s heard about her – but doesn’t get the chance to before Sana’s back in front of her, a cheekiness to her small smile. 

“I didn’t know _you_ fucked girls, though,” Sana thoughtfully adds, perching her hands on Nayeon’s shoulders and reintroducing herself to Nayeon’s mouth. Nayeon can’t really help the butterflies at the returning presence of Sana’s tongue. Even when everything's this soft and blurry around the edges, there's a sharpness to her senses that awakens whenever Sana gets this close.

The feeling doesn’t last. 

“It’s a nice surprise,” Sana adds, and a childish part of Nayeon revels at the knowledge that even gay girls struggle to pick up on her sexuality, yet Sana’s comment still manages to unsettle her anyway. 

It’s the acknowledgement of her attraction to girls – and although she’s no longer closeted, nobody has ever mentioned it outside of her friendship group, so the anxiety remains fresh. The dread that something negative will happen lingers still in safe company, and it’s humiliating how affected she is. 

There must be something in her silence. Sana is looking at her delicately all of a sudden. Nayeon’s lips part, as if tempting Sana back in, and Nayeon wants to say something, to pull them back out of the quietness they’ve sunk into, but Sana’s head dips closer before she has the chance. Sana has a way of softening Nayeon’s consciousness with her lips, and it makes it oh so very easy to forget.

Although Nayeon can sense Sana’s arms wrapping themselves loosely around her neck, fingers playing with the hair above her nape, she was wholly unprepared for the wave of shivers the sensation would send skating down her spine. 

“Does it matter?” Nayeon breathes, pulling out of the kiss and taking a moment for herself before leaning in closer again. The abrupt change of pace has Nayeon wavering slightly, and Sana must notice the stillness suspended between them because, after a quiet moment, Sana slides her hands down Nayeon’s arms only stopping to tangle their fingers together.

The whole situation begins to feel surreal to Nayeon when Sana gently squeezes her hands, not expecting this kind of softness from a girl she knows only by name. 

“It’s kind of gross in here,” Sana offers noiselessly, and Nayeon uses the opportunity to take in the environment of the cubicle they’ve squeezed themselves into. “Come back to mine?”

The look on Sana’s face is a cross between surprise and confusion when Nayeon immediately nods, not finding any further persuasion necessary.

“Okay?” Sana checks doubtfully, expecting clarification to follow that actually, _yes_ , there had been a severe misunderstanding on her part.

“Okay,” Nayeon only confirms, desperate for the affection Sana offers, “yeah.”

“Oh. Okay.”

* * *

Nayeon is dragged out of sleep to the sound of her phone buzzing, her ringtone choice seeming more obnoxious in the event of a hangover than she remembers. Loud. Jihyo is calling her. 

Forcing herself awake, Nayeon moves to grab her phone from the side and squints at the blurred screen before her. Her mascara is sticky, clumping her top and bottom eyelashes together, but Nayeon has bigger concerns than having forgotten to remove her makeup last night. Like the fact Jihyo is calling, when Nayeon is in no fit state to be talking to anyone.

Her head is pounding, brain vibrating against the confines of her skull, and worse still, Nayeon can _feel_ how matted her hair is. Silencing the call, Nayeon falls back against the bed and groans. Her scalp is sore too, especially tender after Sana’s enthusiastic hair-pulling, and — oh god. 

_Sana._

There’s a door clicking shut and a chirpy, “Morning!” becomes the first thing Nayeon hears after registering her surroundings, the realisation of where she is dawning on her. 

Sana is standing by the front door, keys jangling in her hands with a yoga mat tucked under her arm. She’s fully kitted out in sportswear, coming home as opposed to leaving, and later Nayeon will wonder how a college student possibly finds the time to do sports for leisure.

“Sleep well?” 

Nayeon is out of the bed in _seconds_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have no idea what nayeon studies btw but just know her parents are big Mad about it.


	3. Chapter 3

_SANA_

“Are you fucking –” Nayeon bites, feeling the adrenaline that comes with her embarrassment shoot through her, “turn _around_.”

Sana, surprised by the sight she’s seeing – or the _lack_ _of_ sight she’s seeing – whips her body around giving Nayeon the privacy she demands. Privacy Sana is confused by because it’s not like Sana hadn’t already become acquainted with Nayeon’s nakedness the night previous, but that’s–

That’s not something she should be thinking about right now.

Hearing a string of curses fall out of Nayeon’s mouth from behind her, Sana feels her throat swell and wonders if this is what it feels like to be a regret. 

“Is everything okay?” she braves, cautious of the suffocating nature in which Nayeon’s bad mood seems to spread throughout her entire dorm. 

“Everything’s fine.”

Attempting to gauge Nayeon’s whereabouts based on what she hears, Sana squints at the floor and calls on her spacial awareness. She has little of it, she’s reminded, when something comes clattering on her left that has Sana automatically turning around to her right. Luckily (for them both, Sana suspects) Nayeon is already fully clothed by the time Sana _does_ locate what’s toppled over.

Behind Nayeon, a photo frame of Sana’s grandmother rests on the floor. 

“Umm,” Sana mumbles, feeling stupidly out of place in her own home, “is there anything I can do?” 

“ _Please_ stop talking.” Nayeon sharply exhales, her voice sounding shakier this time, and increasingly troubled. Sana wants to reach out and ask her what’s so wrong, but can’t find the momentum to move her feet. “Where’s my bag?”

Sana unhelpfully gestures to the coat rack next to her door, despite knowing that Nayeon hadn’t been looking at her to see it. In fact, Nayeon hasn’t made eye-contact with her at all yet, avoiding looking in Sana’s general direction altogether.

“It’s here. I hung it up with your jacket this morning,” she voices sheepishly, hoping Nayeon’s stress will yield, even minimally, once she finds what she’s looking for. 

It doesn’t. 

As Nayeon begins her approach, Sana finds herself becoming taken by Nayeon’s dishevelled appearance and hates herself for taking pride, however small, in how spoiled Nayeon looks. Her long black hair is down and covering her shoulders, but on their own accord, Sana's eyes drift to Nayeon’s throat. The dark mark she finds there, on the slope of Nayeon’s neck, shouldn’t make her ache as much as it does. 

Sana can’t help but flush, guiltily, at the memory of their night together. 

Nayeon’s standing right in front of her by the time Sana remembers to behave, and the vicious look on Nayeon’s face is menacing enough to make even such pretty features look repelling.

Nayeon, now looking at her for the first time, makes a clear threat. 

“This didn’t happen, are we clear on that?” 

Sana frowns, her eyebrows coming to meet above the bridge of her nose. “What?” 

“You’ve never met me.” Nayeon maintains, and the glacial feel of her stare has Sana’s stomach bottoming out from beneath her. “Are _we clear?_ ”

Choosing her words carefully, Sana nods gently. “Crystal,” she agrees, and with that, Nayeon is gone and the door clicks shut behind her.

_NAYEON_

Despite her solitude, Nayeon’s thoughts have raged loudly throughout the remainder of the day, and with ungraceful fingers, she attempted to write one of two due essays. Her sentences feel broken and her analysis sloppy, and although writing it has consumed double the amount of time it usually does, it might just be the worst piece of coursework Nayeon has ever produced.

Her mind slips back to this morning, the nauseating feeling of waking up to another person – in their house, wrapped up in their sheets, and realising you’re a cheat. 

Nayeon had worked herself up, drawing her breaths in and out rapidly. She had felt herself begin to pace briefly in Sana’s apartment, the shock of waking up in a stranger’s bed setting her off on an entirely new cycle of self-hate. Remembering Sana had still been in the room, the victim of Nayeon’s misdirected anger, only fuelled Nayeon’s disgust at herself further.

_“Take them off,” Nayeon pleads, hating how desperate she sounds. Sana has her reeling._

_Sana stops, drawing her breaths in and out slowly, and her lack of response sets Nayeon on edge. Her heart beats wildly, with anticipation – fear of rejection, maybe._

_And finally—_

_“Are you sure about this?”_

_“Yes,” Nayeon nods, nervous of the hollowness in Sana’s gaze, the way her moonlit face is swallowed of all expressions. “I trust you.”_

_Sana falters for a second time, pulls back to get a full look at the girl beneath her. There’s something in Sana’s eyes now, something Nayeon worries is a look of uncertainty._

_Slowly, Sana’s attention drifts down to her lips and Nayeon’s heart races._

_Nayeon isn’t sure if this feeling is part of sex with another person, but Sana’s eyes, intense and strong, start to make her feel breathless._

_“Cute.”_

_Nayeon kisses her._

Nayeon squeezes her eyes shut, lips pressed into a thin line, and demands for quiet. She needs to call Jeongyeon, Jeongyeon has always known how to fix her, but-

She scrolls past Jeonyeon’s name and lands on Jihyo’s, hovering over her contact details and feeling herself whiten at the magnitude of what she’s done. How do you call your best friend and ask them to comfort you, while knowing they’ll be obliviously betraying their friend to do so?

Nayeon doesn’t deserve comfort. She doesn’t deserve-

The dialling tone rings twice before anxiety creeps back up on Nayeon, her chest hollowing out and her hands becoming shaky. She bites down on her bottom lip in a last-ditch effort not to cry.

When Jihyo doesn’t answer the phone, the last wall of resolve drops, and Nayeon is helpless to stop herself from falling apart. 

_SANA_

Nayeon left behind an eerie, foreboding atmosphere, one that loomed over Sana’s apartment from the moment she had left. 

By midday, Sana had surrendered to the way Nayeon had made her feel, that sensation of apprehensiveness following Sana throughout her afternoon. 

Her time with Nayeon had been an experience Sana would’ve otherwise held close to her if the conflict she felt in the wake of Nayeon’s regret would’ve allowed her to, but all she feels now is dirty. 

“Momo,” Sana calls, pressing the phone to her ear.

Her best friend’s response comes delayed. “Yeah?”

“It’s reasonable to be caught up on a one-night stand, right?”

Momo’s hum is muted. “Right,” she says, “did you sleep with someone?”

“Yeah.” Sana huffs. “Isn’t this weird, though. When I came home from yoga they ran out of my apartment like the building was on fire.”

“You sound annoyed.”

“I _am_ annoyed. They could’ve at least… I don’t know. I know it can be awkward, but... maybe not be so mean about it?” There’s rustling over the line, and Momo doesn’t sound like she’s listening. “Momo!”

Momo hums again. “Was she at least pretty?”

“Momo, be serious! I’m trying to confide in you. Where are you?”

“Sorry,” Momo apologises tenderly, and it’s only now Sana realises the other end of the line has been obscenely quiet. “I’m at the library. There’s a girl here watching me cry.”

“You’re _crying_? What the _hell_ , Momo! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I’m fine. I just started crying suddenly.” Her voice is steady. “I hate studying.”

“I’m coming to get you. What floor?”

“Sana, it’s okay. I’m fine. Was she pretty?”

“A little. I mean,” Sana relents, sighing. Bringing the heel of her palm up to her eyes and rubbing mascara residue from beneath her lashes, she allows herself a moment of reflection. “Momo, she was _so_ pretty. Are you sure you don’t want me to come? I want to.”

The stillness seems to stretch across the line, and Sana wonders if there’s something she’s missing. Perhaps Momo had mentioned something before but Sana hadn’t been listening well, too absorbed in her own drama lately. It might explain why Momo seems to be avoiding giving her an answer.

“Momo,” Sana repeats, softly and without a doubt, full of guilt. “Let me come?”

“Second floor.”

Sana’s relief rolls off of her in waves. She’ll make it up to Momo ten times over, already making a detour to the campus store for pick-me-up goodies. She may not have done something wrong to Momo explicitly, and it’s possible that Momo never even mentioned her problems in the first place, but Sana failed to notice the signs and to her, that’s just as personal. 

Sana aches to hug her.

* * *

It’s weeks before Sana even catches a glimpse of Nayeon again, and really, she’s in no real rush to unpack exactly how she feels about it all, but cannot deny the fact that she has been actively looking. It takes weeks for them to find themselves in the same room again, and just as quickly, Nayeon is gone. 

She begins to notice a pattern. When Sana enters, Nayeon leaves.

It bothers her for reasons it shouldn’t. She understands that perhaps Nayeon is just embarrassed, and it’s less that she slept with Sana and more that she slept with _someone._ She considers the possibility that Nayeon isn’t a girl who makes a habit of one-night stands, but with the way Sana remembers it, Nayeon had intention written all over her face that night. 

So maybe there’s something else there, Sana thinks. Maybe it _is_ personal. 

She runs it past Momo after barging into her dorm one day without naming her, and Momo suggests that Nayeon might’ve just been another straight girl looking to experiment. 

“I don’t think so, though,” Sana disagrees, slumping her shoulders. “She wasn’t awkward with my body. She knew what she was doing.”

Momo tilts her head at Sana’s indulgence with an amused smile, and taunts, “that good, huh?”

Sana whacks her arm. “Shut up. It’s not like that,” she defends, struggling to hold back a smile at Momo’s giggles. “It was like she was scared of me when she woke up. Like she didn’t even want me to look at her.”

Momo’s laughter simmers down into more of a hum, as her expression evolves curiously. “Maybe she’s closeted,” Momo theories, and just like that, Sana feels stupid.

She hadn’t even considered...

Truthfully, the idea that _any_ of the girls she's been with have been closeted had never occurred to her.

Sana tries to imagine it; a life where she’s afraid to be herself. She pictures lying to her friends every day, keeping secrets from Momo and fearing that one day those secrets might be the reason she loses her. She thinks about the girls she’s been with, and how happy it’s made her to love and share and bond over experiences that make them who they are. 

She thinks about being proud, of adoring girls and having that be an open part of her identity. She thinks about the contentedness that comes with holding Momo’s hand walking between classes, about kissing her cheek before parting ways and not having to worry about how that might look to people. Then, she thinks about losing all of it.

Sana doesn't know who she is without affection.

Momo goes back to playing on her phone, her coursework left forgotten on her lap. Sana is staring up at the ceiling, swinging her legs off the side of Momo’s armchair questioning what she’s going to do with this new desire to become Nayeon’s friend. It's entirely illogical to want to be around a girl who doesn’t want _you_ around, but something tells Sana that friends are exactly what Nayeon needs. 

Momo might think she’s absurd for it over the weeks to come, but once Sana decides that she won’t allow Nayeon to bury the night they shared, her mind is made. 

_NAYEON_

Nayeon sees Sana everywhere. Sana _is_ everywhere.

Nayeon ignores her at first, pretends she doesn’t see. But she knows Sana _sees_ , knows she has noticed Nayeon because day-by-day the sensation of Sana’s eyes watching her – whether it be across the library or whichever lecture hall Sana shares with Nayeon that day – lasts for longer than it had the day before.

Nayeon’s been avoiding public spaces - avoiding anywhere Sana might crop up around campus. Problem is, it’s hard to know where to bypass when you don’t know the person you’re trying to get away from. She doesn’t know what Sana studies, who her friends are, which block she lives in… which leaves Nayeon with only the option of avoiding everything altogether. The last time Nayeon has made eye-contact with Sana, Sana had looked like she was going to approach her. Nayeon had turned on her heel before that could happen, but she suspected it was only a matter of time until Sana tried again.

It’s making it increasingly complicated to go about her day, to the point where she becomes uneasy whenever she’s taking too long to walk between classes. It’s been three weeks since she slept with Sana, and two weeks since she’s realised that avoiding Sana comes at a cost of avoiding Jeongyeon. Nayeon cannot even begin to think about what she would do if she saw Sana whilst she was with Jeongyeon without going pale in the face.

Her girlfriend, for the most part, hasn’t noticed. They see each other less now anyway, having conflicting schedules. They’re rarely in the same place at the same time, and Jeongyeon has too many extracurriculars going on to keep track of Nayeon’s rota, making it easier to lie and slip into the same dishonesty that Nayeon has always condemned in people.

Nayeon can’t bring herself to visit Jeongyeon. Not after what she did. But she can’t bring herself to confess to Jeongyeon, either.

Nayeon _almost_ came close to admitting it out loud, almost telling Jihyo what she’d done - but no sooner than she opened her mouth did she begin blubbering, telling Jihyo everything and anything except the truth of it all. Jihyo had been patient, as she always is, tried taking apart Nayeon’s grief and reassembling in a way that made sense to her. In the end, being so far away made it too difficult for Jihyo to pinpoint the root of Nayeon’s distress, though she spent hours talking Nayeon down on Facetime. The most Jihyo settled on was that there was a girl Nayeon seemed afraid of, or at the very least intimidated by, and Nayeon didn’t bother to correct Jihyo’s assumption instead too preoccupied with begging Jihyo not to mention it to Jeongyeon.

Looking down at her phone, Nayeon makes a mental note to call Jihyo soon. If only she could push past the embarrassment to thank her best friend for tolerating her crazy, she could ask for some advice on avoiding Sana as well. (Just not in so many words).

The same Sana who is taking the escalators down to her floor.

_Shit._

Nayeon bolts upright at the sight of Sana, who hasn’t seemed to have noticed her yet. She’s sitting at a desk almost directly parallel to the escalator, and Sana’s alone, which sparks more panic in Nayeon than usual. Nothing is stopping Sana from addressing her now they’re both without company and have the luxury of privacy away from friends. 

The other girl is absorbed in her phone, which gives Nayeon time to squeeze out of Sana’s line of sight, stumbling over curse words and looking about as neurotic as someone who recognises they’re in trouble. 

She’s gathering her things and jostling them into her bag as quick as her body will allow, and just as abruptly, Nayeon can feel the sensation of Sana’s eyes drilling into her. In the scramble to get out of the library before Sana could even consider advancing closer, Nayeon accidentally whacks her pencil case onto the floor as she scoops up her bag, and is already a few strides away from the table by the time she hears it smack the floor. She doesn’t glance back, and she isn’t going to linger to pick it back up either. 

When she hears her name, Nayeon paces _faster._

Nayeon is barely out of the building before she makes out Sana’s footsteps catching up to her.

“Why are you _here_?” Nayeon bites through clenched teeth, and although she’s not exactly angry, she refuses to physically look at Sana and acknowledge her. With Sana walking beside her it’s hardly a secret now that they know each other, and Nayeon orders herself not to overreact.

“Because,” Sana pants, “you dropped your pencil case, and if you’re gonna sleep with me then you’re gonna acknowledge my existence.” She’s still catching her breath by the time Nayeon snatches it away from her, speeding forwards, but Sana doesn’t have too much of an issue keeping up. “But,” Sana continues, “I don’t care if you acknowledge _what_ we did together. We can be friends. No one keeps your secrets as good as a friend does.”

Nayeon’s jaw tightens, her mind searching for a way to claim control of the situation, of the way Sana is putting her on edge. It falls onto a spiteful thought, but Sana has been the target of her malice once already. Besides, the last thing Nayeon needs to do is create a scene, especially with her anxiety fighting to get the better of her.

“I have enough friends.”

“I’m pretty sure you don’t have any.” 

“I have what I need.” Nayeon resists bluntly, putting no effort in cloaking her annoyance.

“We should go out together. I don’t mean like, before, you know - I mean we should start the night together instead of like, finishing it together,” Sana babbles senselessly, losing her nerve. “Not like... I know we slept together but, I mean, I’d like to be friends.”

Nayeon doesn’t know how to respond to... well, any of that. Frustration bubbles underneath the surface of her skin while lacking any real way to direct it, because why is Sana addressing this in _public._

“Please, Nayeon,” Sana then begs, gently, which takes Nayeon by surprise. She tries not to show it. “We were getting along really well before… before we- Look. I just want to be friends. Just friends. Please. I think we could both use one right now.”

Nayeon looks at her for the first time, and she recognises it’s a mistake as soon as she meets Sana’s eyes. Nayeon’s throat dries, and she breaks their eye-contact rashly. “I thought I made myself clear on where we stand,” Nayeon finally speaks, head down and voice low.

Sana seems to grow fed up with Nayeon marching ahead of her, because before Nayeon understands what’s happening, Sana has wheeled around to stand directly in front of her, and Nayeon has to abruptly halt to avoid colliding into her.

“I don’t know if you remember, but I already gave you my number that night. So you have time to think about it.”

Sana is utilising Nayeon's dumbfoundedness to present her case, she realises, but Nayeon is having too much of a hard time snapping out of her daze to even consider storming around her. Being this close to Sana is sparking memories she'd been desperate to suppress, and Nayeon's beginning to find it increasingly difficult to split her attention between the enticing way in which Sana's mouth moves, and the words that are coming out of it.

"Forget the sex. We never even have to bring it up again. I just want to be friends."

The smell of Sana’s fragrance, the way it felt to have Sana wrapped around her, and how effortless it was to just let _go_. Losing herself in Sana had been too easy, she had enjoyed it too much, and Nayeon is shifting forward before recognising the way her eyes have sunk to Sana’s lips, and-

_No._

Feeling a slush of anger stir hotly inside of her at the realisation of what she'd almost just done, Nayeon shoves Sana backwards in a blind panic, completely overwhelmed with herself.

“Leave me _alone_ ,” she hisses, cheeks burning and tears threatening to spill over. Every second with this girl is a reminder of the pain she’s causing her relationship, and Nayeon can’t risk being around Sana when she already knows how out of control she becomes in her company.

 _So much for not making a scene._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nayeons going through it. so's momo apparently


	4. Chapter 4

_NAYEON_

There’s something different about Jeongyeon tonight. 

Nayeon tilts her head away from Jeongyeon’s bare chest to study her face, slowly, careful to not disturb whatever haze her girlfriend seems to be in. 

It’s been a while since they’ve had the time to be together, and a while before Nayeon had worked up the courage to return back by Jeongyeon’s side. It’s awkward, and the tension is bursting through the threshold of Jeongyeon’s dorm, but neither of them seems to be able to subdue or decipher it. 

Jeongyeon has been acting weird.

She’s not meaning to stare, but Nayeon falls into a haze of her own. Watching Jeongyeon, watching her lips, the vacantness of her expression and wondering why that is.

Jeongyeon sighs. “Quit staring at me? Please?”

“You seem weird,” Nayeon says, and then scolds herself for it. 

Jeongyeon inhales deeply and lifts her free hand up to tussle with her hair, pushing it all over to one side only for it to fall back into a centre parting. 

Resettling her arm back down to her side, an alien smell welcomes itself to Nayeon’s senses, and it becomes the first new thing Nayeon notices about Jeongyeon that is different. Her perfume. It’s stronger, bolder, even. Jeongyeon was always more of a fan of subtle, feminine scents.

The second thing Nayeon notices, although not new, is the smell of Jeongyeon’s shampoo - a weird brand Jeongyeon’s been loyal to since the day she started doing her own grocery shopping. It’s vegan and smells pretty, but it’s expensive, and Nayeon had always felt guilty using it when she stayed over and showered at Jeongyeon’s, but found the fragrance hard to resist. She considered buying her own bottle once, but its travel-like size becomes both impractical and inefficient for its price when you have such long hair. 

(Besides, purchasing a bottle of her own would’ve only ruined the novelty of it, dampening yet another positive association with Jeongyeon). 

“I’m sorry,” Nayeon says, and forgets to stop herself from burying her face into Jeongyeon’s neck. Her nose is tickled by the light strands of Jeongyeon’s hair, and when Nayeon takes a deep breath in it’s like inhaling nostalgia. Nayeon literally feels the stress melt out of her body.

The action startles her.

Nayeon hadn’t even realised she was smelling her, which is an alarming thought, but Nayeon hasn’t had to question her behaviour around Jeongyeon since their early days together. She wonders if this is another one of those things, another liberty she’s taking now – finding comfort in parts of Jeongyeon she shouldn’t, selfishly allowing the presence of her girlfriend to calm her when she’s so undeserving of such a thing.

Despite herself, Nayeon tightens her arms around Jeongyeon’s chest. “Do you love me?”

Nayeon is searching for honest eyes, understanding ones. She pushes aside the shame that washes over her when Jeongyeon’s mouth opens – for asking, persisting, enjoying the way that Jeongyeon’s words will touch her. But Nayeon doesn’t anticipate a shift in Jeongyeon’s routined answer, and doesn't consider it a possibility until the day, this day, when the second change rolls right off of Jeongyeon’s tongue. 

“I love you, Nayeon,” she says. “But I don’t want to.” 

It’s quiet for a while, but strangely, Nayeon doesn’t feel like crying. She does feel the weight of Jeongyeon’s words in her chest, like an anchor has been wound around her heart and is pulling it down, down, _down_. But she doesn’t cry. She doesn’t deserve that, either.

Nayeon is worried that she _will_ start crying the second she opens her mouth though, like the concealment of her lips might just be the one thing preventing these emotions from pouring out of her. So she waits a while, and Jeongyeon waits a while, and then she says, “I love you, too.”

Jeongyeon’s voice is infuriatingly calm, and this hurts Nayeon the most. “Those are empty words, coming from you.” 

Somehow Nayeon finds herself agreeing. 

* * *

The changes in Jeongyeon don’t initially have Nayeon losing sleep like she had anticipated it would. Instead, she finds herself spilling every conscious thought into her coursework, her essays and academic deadlines. Productiveness has never felt so promising, if only she wasn’t using it as a means to procrastinate across other aspects of her life. 

She finds fault in her method by the time the week is over. She has run out of coursework, and subsequently, of ways to remove Jeongyeon from her awareness. She’s burnt out but has been resting well, so there are no hopes of sleeping time away until the next piece of work drops onto her lap. She has little left to do but think, and oh, does Nayeon deeply resent it. Still, she tries, and forces herself into another _Grey’s Anatomy_ rewatch despite no longer feeling any connection to the show or its characters. 

After hours of scrolling through social media to background noise of Meredith and Derek squabbling over whatever it is they're butting heads over now _, s_ he eventually falls at a dead end. Then, in a moment of complete insanity, she texts _Sana_. She texts Sana, and then launches her phone to the other side of the bed.

When her ringtone splits through the room, Nayeon scrambles for it in a frenzy, only to stare at it in dread for the next few moments. She should’ve predicted that Sana wasn't the type of girl to appreciate the art of texting, especially not when calling is much more direct.

Nayeon hesitates, and she hesitates. Just before the ringing is about to cut off, perhaps in her second lapse of judgement tonight, she swipes to answer.

“...Hello?”

Sana has to raise her voice over all the commotion in the background. “ _Nayeon!_ ”

* * *

Nayeon has no idea how she got here. 

Well, perhaps that statement isn’t entirely true. She understands how she came to be in Sana’s company, after being talked into joining Sana at a pub in the name of making new friends. But _here,_ inside Sana’s dorm room for the second time, after beating herself up so much for the _first_... Yeah. Nayeon has no idea how she got here.

It was to be completely casual, that was the condition Nayeon had agreed to. Sana had promised a relaxed evening over a few drinks to get to know each other. And yeah, maybe the premise of that seems naive now given where she’s ended up, but Sana wasn’t wrong when she said that Nayeon needed more friends. And, well... it’s not like Nayeon has had an abundance of offers.

Everything was pre-planned before Nayeon had even so much as agreed. It was strictly… for friendship. She hadn’t come with any intentions, that much was made clear. And Sana had committed to that idea, deciding she was going to leave her friends and return to her dorm to ‘dress down’ for the occasion. Despite the wardrobe change, Sana had still beat Nayeon to the pub they’d settled on, one outside of campus, and even with all the extra measures they went through to keep this as friendly as possible, they had probably accidentally made it more intimate.

Perhaps Nayeon should’ve known.

In fact, _had_ Nayeon known, she certainly wouldn’t have spent so much time talking about what they would wear if they were only going to end the night wearing nothing.

Because that is definitely where this is going.

It feels like forever before either of them make a move, and Nayeon is beginning to weaken under the gaze Sana holds her in.

Their first kiss is light. Fleeting, but felt.

Nayeon is hesitant at first, her fingers tensing into small bleached fists that hang at her sides, her body frozen and telling her _No_ . But that _No_ becomes hazy and cloudy as Sana softens her hold on Nayeon – her touch light but loud on her skin. 

“Relax, Nayeon,” Sana tells her, fingertips ghosting along Nayeon’s wrists. Nayeon says nothing, just readjusts the position of her own hand to clutch at Sana’s waist, anchoring herself. 

The gap between their mouths is short-lived, a closing distance that cuts Nayeon off before she can finish her whisper of, “sorry.” She allows herself to be brought into Sana’s body with a gentleness that picks apart her nerves, a gentleness that reminds her of Jeongyeon.

The kiss lasts no longer than a few seconds, but by the time Sana distances her mouth from Nayeon’s, enough to allow for an observation to be made of the hungry way that Sana is looking at her, Nayeon surges back into another. Their second kiss is more hurried, fumbled, desperate – Sana’s two hands either side of Nayeon’s head, thumbs pushing back the hair on either side of Nayeon’s face. 

“I’m sorry,” Nayeon repeats again into Sana’s mouth, unsure of who the sorry is for, and takes a shuddering breath through her nose. Nayeon’s free hand weaves its way into Sana’s hair, lips halting as she processes the feel of Sana’s body flushed against her own — deciding whether or not it’s a sensation she likes, before pushing more firmly, more confidently into her. 

Nayeon continues to press, into Sana’s mouth, her hips – guiding Sana back against the wall, and supporting Sana’s body when it falls against hers. Their embrace is rushed and clumsy and so many other things that Nayeon tries pushing away from acknowledgement, from feeling, but she does anyway — she feels it everywhere. 

Sana’s leg pushing between her thighs and upwards, Sana’s teeth closing around her bottom lip. Sana’s fingers, tentative and careful, tracing the buttons on her shirt. 

Nayeon decides to do something about Sana’s lingering fingers and pushes her own shirt up for Sana’s hands. Inviting, allowing Sana the permission she hadn’t yet gotten around to asking for. 

With a budding urgency to touch, Nayeon pushes Sana harder against the wall, oblivious to the light-switch embedded between Sana’s shoulder blades.

“ _Nayeon_ ,” Sana hisses, blinking rapidly as she pushes them apart. 

Sana’s voice does something to Nayeon – acts as some form of bridge back to the surface, and Nayeon’s morality screeches back into the forefront. She doesn’t physically recoil from Sana, but Sana can see that it’s there — that some sort of stilling, mental switch has shattered something within Nayeon, something between them. 

“Nayeonnie,” Sana tries, but Nayeon scrunches up her face. “What’s wrong?”

_I love you, Nayeon. But I don't want to._

Nayeon catches herself, shakes herself back into the reality that she is very much in love with the girl across campus. It feels almost ritual at this point even reminding herself that girl she’d just been kissing is not the same girl that she loves, that Sana is _not_ her girlfriend, but even the uncomfortable shiver that thought sends down her spine isn’t grounding enough for Nayeon to want to put more of a distance between them. 

“Hey,” Sana prods, tenderly lifting Nayeon’s chin to meet her eyes, “do you want to stop?”

Nayeon feels worse for Sana’s kindness. 

Shaking her head, Nayeon sucks in a shaky breath and wills herself not to get emotional. She tries to swallow the guilt down, if anything just so Sana will stop looking at her like _that_ , and lies. “I’m fine.”

Sana interlocks their fingers, which Nayeon immediately breaks. She chooses to hold Sana’s palms instead, ignoring the way Sana looks down at them curiously. 

“Are you sure?” 

Nayeon nods but doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t offer an explanation to Sana — utters no excuse, no distraction, no fumble of guilty, apologetic words. 

She does little but pull Sana’s hands closer to her, placing them against her abdomen. Twisting them right-side-up, Nayeon presses them against her stomach, lifting, guiding Sana’s palms over her shirt, and then underneath it. 

Nayeon kisses her – abrupt and harsh and probably for all the wrong reasons. If Jeongyeon is love then what Nayeon must be experiencing with Sana is complete, unadulterated lust, the feeling of betrayal down to a low burn in her chest. 

Nayeon arches into Sana, hands back up slipping through and grabbing onto the roots of her hair – and though Sana follows the direction, the heat of the kiss, her hands don’t shift too much against Nayeon’s body. Despite Nayeon’s blatant encouragement for Sana to feel, explore, _touch_ , Sana is slow and cautious and everything the kiss isn’t. 

When Nayeon pushes for pressure, more contact, the feel of more skin, she receives nothing more than careful touches along her ribs, and a brush of fingers against her bra. 

Nayeon doesn’t bother trying to suppress her groan, her dissatisfaction with Sana’s pace as disappointment floods her stomach. Sana, expectant of the protest, pushes against Nayeon’s chest and forces her to swallow it. 

“Wait,” Sana chastises, prying their bodies apart, “slow down a minute.” 

“ _Why_?” Nayeon whines, cheeks pink with frustration. 

“Are you sure you’re okay with this? Last time you… will you still want this tomorrow?”

Nayeon’s lips press to Sana’s shoulder, but move quickly to the side of her neck. “I want this now,” she mutters into skin, “tomorrow doesn’t matter.”

Sana nods into Nayeon’s hair, deciding she isn’t going to ask again. She nudges Nayeon’s mouth from her neck, bringing her face back up to meet hers. “Okay,” she nods again, sure this time, content with Nayeon’s answer. 

Nayeon returns her lips to Sana’s body with an impatience that seems even less controlled than it had been before. Nayeon’s fingers skid along the dimples of Sana’s back, moving up to fight with her bra strap, her arms encasing Sana’s torso while she struggles to unclip it. 

It doesn’t take long before the lack of undress between them becomes too insatiable for both of their needs, and Sana isn’t really thinking when she dips her fingers straight underneath the material wrapped around Nayeon’s waist. Nayeon jolts against her, the weight of her body trapping Sana against the wall, and it only fuels Nayeon’s desperation to rid the burden of clothing – the material serving as nothing but barriers between their skin. 

Nayeon wants – she wants nothing more than to _feel_ , wants nothing more than Sana’s mouth against her chest, tongue against her bare thighs. A burning desire that has been absent from her life since before—

_Before._

Nayeon’s fingers, curling into the material of Sana’s skirt, tremble with the weight of shame she feels hurling back down onto her shoulders. Jeongyeon, the girlfriend waiting for her to call, slips into her mind again for a moment — but the sound of Sana’s low gasp paralyses that thought, and Nayeon feels herself becoming distracted.

She sucks in a sharp breath, chest burning, and manages to force out a hasty, “off,” before stepping back to give Sana the room she needs. 

Sana gestures towards Nayeon’s own. 

“Yours too,” she whispers, breathless with anticipation. “Fair’s fair.” 

* * *

_SANA_

Sana’s actually studying for once when she receives a strange text from Nayeon. It’s been days since they last shared space together, and unlike the first time they slept together, Sana hasn’t attempted to contact Nayeon since they’d caved after a night of drinks. Sana had woken up without her again, and it's not like Nayeon had attempted to make any contact with her either.

_u around? 15:41_

Sana, despite being on the complete opposite side of the room, looks up at Momo sharply. She’s laying across Sana’s bed on her phone, humming along to some boy band song, thankfully, blissfully unaware to the text Sana just got. How _would_ she know, anyway? Sana huffs, stupidly having allowed herself to panic.

She’s not good with secrets. 

See, Sana still hasn’t told Momo, and maybe it has something to do with the fact that Momo would only hear one side of the story - the side where Nayeon yells and regrets and treats her like a mistake. It’s been weeks since she first ever mentioned her, a couple of months probably, but it’s been hard trying to approach telling Momo of all the developments with Nayeon since then. Like how she attempted befriending that one girl that ran out on her weeks ago, and then slept with her all over again. She wouldn’t know how to explain that the same girl is texting her now, after running out on her _again_. Unpacking all the conflicting emotions and thoughts Sana has about her relationship with Nayeon is too taxing even just as a _thought_. 

She doesn’t tell Momo. 

She does reply to Nayeon’s text though, before finding a way to kick Momo out of her dorm. Her best friend can’t be here if Nayeon decides to call. There’s no way she can talk her way around that.

_Yeah, just at home_ 15:54

 _ur dorm? or home-home_ 16:01

 _Dorm_ 16:04

Momo leaves about 40 minutes before two knocks come at the door. Sana doesn’t have to ask to know who it is.

“It’s open, come in.”

Nayeon storms in and then freezes in the middle of the room, looking like she doesn’t know what to do with herself. 

Sana tries to hide her surprise. She wasn't expecting Nayeon to even contact her again, let alone show up unannounced.

Nayeon’s mouth opens and closes, and then she says, “you shouldn’t leave your door unlocked like that, it’s unsafe.”

Of all the things Sana thought Nayeon might’ve said, that certainly wasn’t it. “If my door was locked and I had to open it for you, you wouldn’t have been able to have your dramatic entrance.”

“I could’ve been anyone.”

“No, you couldn’t have.” Nayeon stands quietly, and Sana rolls her eyes. “Only two people know where my dorm is, and Momo doesn’t knock. I knew it was you.”

Nayeon mustn’t know how to respond to that, because she takes her phone out of her pocket and then shoves it straight back in again without looking at it. Restlessly, she says, “I wanna talk about the other night.”

Sana takes her glasses off to pinch the bridge of her nose, rubbing between her eyes. “Thought we’d decided it wasn't a big deal?”

“No. I mean, yes, but…How about we make it one?”

“A big deal? Nayeon—”

“ _No,_ ” Nayeon groans, the heat in her stomach beginning to rise to her cheeks, “Just _a_ deal,” she blurts. “Like an arrangement.”

Nayeon can feel that Sana’s eyes are on her even though she’s looking the other way. She’s not sure where her nervousness is coming from; she’s been here before. In fact, this is exactly the way her current relationship began — Nayeon needy, asking Jeongyeon for something she had no right to.

“A… sex one.”

“I know what you meant by arrangement, Nayeon,” Sana says cautiously, picking up the pillow she had squashed between her crossed legs and tossing it to the side. She stands, gradually, allowing time for Nayeon to react to the distance shortening between them.

“Okay,” Nayeon says hotly. “Then answer the question.”

Sana doesn’t seem able to do anything but blink. 

She isn’t able to read Nayeon very well, and that much has been clear since their night at the bar. Nayeon has been unpredictable from day one, and having witnessed Nayeon literally flip her domineering personality completely on its head by relinquishing control the first night they met, Sana aches at the knowledge that her entire idea of Nayeon had been wrong.

Nayeon is... at worst, a little volatile when presented with anything that makes her feel vulnerable (this Sana _does_ know). But having assumed control played a vital role in Nayeon’s functionality is perhaps the first misjudgement on Sana’s part, because Nayeon gave Sana free reign on her body without even knowing her, her submissiveness taking Sana by surprise.

When alone, Nayeon is a shell of who Sana had thought she was, who everyone _thinks_ she is, her brutality softening into something Sana doesn’t know how to handle other than apprehensively. But in front of an audience, Nayeon’s mouth is sharp, her words aiming to wound, and Sana wonders why she finds herself so attracted to a girl like this in the first place.

But then she remembers their evening together, before they ended up in _bed_ together. Nayeon was laughing freely, and smiling so widely at her it had actually made Sana flustered. She'd agreed to meet Nayeon expecting her night to be difficult, expecting _Nayeon_ to be difficult, closed off and hostile. Sana had considered how much alcohol could've played a role in that, yet Nayeon had been enjoying herself long before she started to stumble over her words.

“I don’t… I don’t get you.” Sana manages, “You sleep with me, you tell me you don't want to sleep with me. Then you sleep with me again but sneak out, and now you're telling me you want to have casual sex?” 

The more she thinks about it, the less Sana recognises her own behaviour in all this. No one likes being treated as disposable, or as a reminder of somebody else’s own shame, and Sana has never been shallow enough to ignore a person’s arrogance just because they’re pretty. So when Nayeon wakes up after a night they shared together, bulldozing out of Sana’s apartment with disgust on her face, why does Sana wish she would stay?

Nayeon’s eyes clamp shut and her lips thin out, and it’s these little lapses in Nayeon’s carefully polished front that Sana holds onto – her usual bravado slipping into waves of awkwardness and clumsily-masked anxiety. “Does it _matter_?” 

Nayeon is riddled with nerves. 

It’s not that Sana really _knows_ Nayeon, at least not anything about her aside from what their classmates have passed on through petty gossip. And even then, their understanding of Nayeon is limited to the information that Nayeon chooses to feed them. It’s one thing to come off as cold, belligerent, and indifferent, be known for it even. But Sana wonders if any of those people have actually seen Nayeon like this, with pink ears and an unconfident, wavering gaze. The girl definitely isn’t made of steel.

“I’m not saying no. Just… why me?”

Nayeon leaps on the defensive. “You’re a self-aware girl, Sana. Are you really asking for an ego-boost?”

“No! I’m not asking you to tell me I’m pretty or… _whatever_. I’m asking why you suddenly need this from _me_ when there’s a campus full of girls who would be more than eager.”

“I don’t– can’t I just _want_ this?”

“You told me you had a girlfriend when we were drunk. You nearly started crying, Nayeon. You don’t even remember, do you?”

Nayeon hesitates, but ultimately, doesn’t bother denying it. “I was drunk.”

“You were honest.”

“Are you gonna fight me on everything I say?”

“I’m the only one who knows you’re gay, right?” Sana asks, though it looks like she’s already made up her mind. “So that’s why?”

Nayeon stills, and Sana gains composure in her silence. 

She inches closer to Nayeon. “If you have a girlfriend, Nayeon, then this… this can’t be—”

“It’s just sex,” Nayeon exhales, “that’s all.”

Sana hopes that’s not true.

The second Nayeon had confessed to having a girlfriend, Sana had made the assumption that something wasn’t clicking anymore. Perhaps there was no love left, or they treated each other badly. Sana hates the idea that Nayeon could have a perfectly functional, loving relationship and still choose to cheat. Hates the kind of person that would make Nayeon. 

Sana drops the thought, refusing to shoulder responsibility for another person’s relationship, _or_ their choices. 

“Just sex,” Sana says more to herself than anyone. “Do you not have sex with your girlfriend?” 

Her intention isn’t to challenge Nayeon, but Sana’s aware that’s the message Nayeon has received. Nayeon’s backing away, ready to retreat out the door almost as quickly as she had entered, but Sana is quicker. 

Nayeon blinks and Sana is back in her space, heart racing at a sudden change of direction. Sana lifts a hand to Nayeon’s face, pushing back Nayeon’s hair behind her shoulders. “So just sex, then. I guess I can handle that.” 

Nayeon shivers at the feel of warm fingers brushing against her neck, anticipating, waiting for whatever Sana’s next move is.

She doesn’t have to wait long. 

“If I agree to this and kiss you, will you regret it?”

“Probably,” slips out in an unintentional, blind moment of honesty. Nayeon’s focus darts between Sana’s eyes and lips, but lingers on the latter. “ _Are_ you going to kiss me?”

Sana questions again if this is a good idea, getting involved with a girl who has a girlfriend and no less have that girl be Im Nayeon. But Sana doesn’t think Nayeon is a bad person, not really. And this _is_ just sex. 

Does she really have anything to be worried about?

“Probably.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jeongyeon is not mean!!! she is not the villain of this story despite the way it may seem. in fact, none of them are. we will get everyone's side of things eventually!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not proof read cuz its like 3am. fight me

* * *

_I can’t believe you left :(_

_did you think i was going  
to sleep with you?_

_Duh. You came all the way  
to my dorm to ask for sex,  
was I supposed to think  
you didn’t want the sex?_

_not today.. it wouldve been  
awkward_

_What?_ _  
__How...?_

_Come back ;(_

| 

22:12

22:13  
  
  
22:14  
  
  
  
22:28  
  
  
22:31

22:42  
  
---|---  
  
* * *

Nayeon balls her hands into tight fists, curling her fingers into her palm. There’s lipstick smeared across her chin, damp and vibrant, in the shape of Sana’s mouth. 

She leaves Sana asleep amongst dishevelled sheets and sneaks off into the bathroom. She can still hear Sana’s light snores filtering through the door from the bedroom when she makes it, low but shattered, pricking up goosebumps unpleasantly on her skin. 

“Shit,” Nayeon mutters, twisting the tap on and making a grab for the soap with a burn in her throat. She tries to settle down her nerves, relax, take deep breaths. “ _Christ_ , Nayeon.”

She eyes her reflection in the mirror with a vicious, punishing scowl, until her jaw tightens and her cheeks begin to ache. The water runs uselessly across her fingers, numbing the tips as Nayeon assesses the state of her hair, skin, and bags under her eyes. 

Nayeon hates herself for getting lost in it all. In Sana. 

There’s evidence of her everywhere, mapped out across Nayeon’s body – washed out lipstick stains colouring her skin red, and the hickeys covering her chest, purple. Her hair is greasy from sweat, knots painfully catching between her wet fingers as she tries to brush through them. It doesn’t do much, combing it, doesn’t take attention away from the scratches that run across her collarbone, protruding and sharp – but the routine of it gives Nayeon comfort. Gives her a sense of normalcy.

Nayeon moves to take off what’s left of her clothing, the only part of her wardrobe Sana hadn’t dragged off, but rather, pushed up. A grey sweater belonging to Jeongyeon. Nayeon had borrowed it from Jeongyeon’s dirty laundry pile the night previous, still smelling like her girlfriend’s new perfume when she had pulled it over her head in a hurry. As Nayeon undresses now, she only smells Sana.

Bare in front of the mirror, Nayeon takes in the whole picture – the frame of her tired body. Running her fingers over the smears of lipstick across her chin, frustration bubbles in her stomach, fierce and knowing in that any attempts at washing away the oily substance would be futile now the pigment has already soaked into her skin. Still, Nayeon tries, and spends five minutes tending to the marks with a warm, damp bath towel, scrubbing until the differences between the invasive lipstick stains and the inflaming pinkness of her own skin blend, blurring together. 

And—

And when Nayeon turns on the shower and stares over her naked reflection a final time, stripped down completely until the only thing that covers her body is the hair that hangs down her back, she feels nothing. She doesn’t feel the disgust at herself like she had the last two times this happened, doesn’t feel the guilt that usually came after sex with Sana, after sleeping with a girl who isn’t Jeongyeon. She just… doesn’t feel anything. 

Maybe she’ll delude herself into calling this numbness a blessing. Protective.

* * *

Nayeon doesn’t see Jeongyeon for twelve days. She doesn’t see Sana, either, but she isn’t dating Sana, nor is she in a committed relationship with the girl.

 _Committed_. 

Nayeon’s stomach lurches.

* * *

Too engrossed in her book, Nayeon doesn’t anticipate Sana’s presence until she’s planting herself down at Nayeon’s table.

“You haven’t replied to my texts today,” is the first thing Sana says, followed by, “I’ve missed your grumpy replies.”

Nayeon grunts and holds up her book as a way of explaining. 

Sana giggles, resting her head horizontally on the table so she can see Nayeon’s face from where it’s hidden underneath her book. “You’re lucky I’m not easily offended, you know. I sent you a video you should watch.” 

Nayeon is able to see from her peripherals that Sana is still smiling, so Nayeon continues to ignore her. That is, until—

“You know, you’re pretty from this angle, too.”

“You’re noisier today,” Nayeon says glumly, still not looking up from her book. 

“I like seeing you from this angle, actually. Reminds me of the view I get when—”

“We’re in a library,” Nayeon intersects edgily, lowering her voice enough for Sana to get an idea of what the problem with that might be. “People can hear you.”

It’s hard for Sana not to roll her eyes. “So? We’re friends, right?” Sana lifts her head from the table now that she has Nayeon’s reception. “I can call you pretty in public.”

Nayeon’s eyes stop on one particular line in her book, and then slowly Nayeon looks beyond the pages, and at Sana. 

“Weirdly, that’s not the part I have a problem with.” Nayeon retorts lowly. Sana continues to stare at her the way that Sana does, a superficial density to her expression that aids people into forgetting that Sana is a girl with high emotional intelligence. 

“People will make assumptions.”

The library has three floors. The first floor, where they’re sat, is the most communal. As you walk through the metal detectors past security, there’s a printing station, and behind it, a least two dozen rows of computers. Throughout the rest of the floor are randomly dotted round tables that can seat up to seven or eight people. Needless to say, there’s a lot of ears.

“Yeah, well, I don’t care about their assumptions or what they think,” Sana shrugs dismissively, and Nayeon wonders how much of that statement is really true. 

Sana sits up straighter in her chair then, scanning the room far too quickly to actually be looking for anything. She keeps Nayeon in her line of sight, and Nayeon considers that perhaps Sana’s only putting on this show to get exactly the kind of reaction Nayeon is giving her – intrigue. 

Once Sana is confident she holds Nayeon’s attention, she bites down a smile.

“Is your girlfriend here?” Sana asks cheekily, with the kind of lilt to her voice to display she’s teasing – but the mention of her girlfriend has Nayeon’s heart jumping regardless. “Is that why I shouldn't be talking to you? Or calling you pretty?”

“You’re an idiot,” Nayeon tells her, bristling at the realisation that she’s allowed herself to become distracted again, a habit Sana seems to have gotten herself into. Intruding into Nayeon’s conscious mind and taking up space she’s not entitled to, demanding and stubborn.

(Whether or not it’s an active goal of Sana’s doesn’t seem to have any effect on her ability to carry the task out regardless, and it’s kind of becoming embarrassing. And incredibly annoying).

Nayeon restarts her page from the top. 

“You don’t have to worry about all that stuff by the way,” Sana follows, despite Nayeon’s clear disinterest in the continuation of this conversation. “College isn’t like high-school. No one cares about this stuff.”

To an extent, Nayeon can understand how she might be right. The part-time education system allows students to expand on their lives in ways they couldn’t in high school, there’s more going on and half the student population remain faceless. Drama, in a sense, is harder to follow. There’s less of a gossip culture in college, non-problems don’t have the capacity to explode into existential crises like they do in high-school, but amongst subgroups do rumour mills still thrive here. In smaller groups, Nayeon is still the subject of many conversations. 

“Someone could figure us out.”

The minute Nayeon voices it aloud, she regrets it. 

Sana tilts her head. “Us?”

Nayeon sighs.

If there’s one difference between her and Sana, it’s that Sana revels in her sexuality, whereas Nayeon hides from hers. Sana doesn’t need to think before she acts on petty desires, and it worries Nayeon beyond belief.

As shameful as it is to admit, Nayeon has noticed Sana in every room they’ve shared since the day she first met her. She’s learned enough about Sana to know that she doesn’t shy away from attraction in the same way Nayeon does, doesn’t cringe or overthink how she interacts with girls that interest her, and honesty? It unsettles her. 

It intimidates Nayeon that Sana could not be more transparent, and Nayeon wonders if this is how it must be when you grow up sheltered from your attraction to girls. Sana’s self-awareness came bursting out of her at a late age, allowing her to flourish under an upbringing where affection between your girls didn’t mean anything more than a love between friends. 

When you grow up oblivious to your difference, you have a childhood, an adolescence like any other straight girl. You’ve never been conscious of your friends’ casual homophobia, to society’s toxic, harmful treatment against people like you. There’s no second-guessing your affection in dread of the consequences you might face because you _are_ no different from other girls. 

Nayeon’s upbringing couldn’t have been more polarising. 

Growing up knowing you’re gay instils a certain type of fear in you. You worry affection will label you as predatory. Physical and emotional attachment are reigned in and kept suppressed tightly within your chest. Felt, but never acted on. Never acknowledged. Nayeon didn’t hug her girl friends just because she _wanted_ to, just for the sake of feeling like doing so. Sometimes Sana will run her fingers in another girl’s hair, and there’s no thought put into why she’s doing it, if she should be doing it, and Nayeon can't help but feel the jealously in knowing she could never be that bold.

In truth, she has no idea what a normal relationship with another girl is like, and has been finding it impossible for years to differentiate between whether advances from other girls have been platonic or romantic in nature, leaving her stumbling around blind to how she should and shouldn’t behave. 

When she had realised she was gay Nayeon felt as if she had begun to wilt, had dedicated years to making herself smaller. Sana's attraction to women had only encouraged her to blossom, and Nayeon worries it’ll take one look at them together for the world to read that intent all over Sana’s face. Take her shamelessness and pride when it comes to sexuality, and connect the dots.

“Well if they do,” Sana continues, drawing Nayeon away from her paranoia, “can they let me know, too? Because sometimes I think I might be more like a girlfriend to you than your actual girlfriend, and I would like to know how that could be possible.”

Nayeon narrows her eyes. 

Quietly, Sana asks, “Have you ever cheated on your girlfriend before?” 

Nayeon doesn’t bother dignifying that question with a response, encouraging Sana to continue. 

“ _Exactly_ ,” she says, nodding to emphasize her point, “you don’t have a history of cheating to make anyone suspicious. Besides,” she follows sceptically, “apparently no one even knows you’re gay.”

“But they know _you_ are,” Nayeon scoffs, and Sana only looks at her with that cool expression of hers. 

“That’s still not a reason for anyone you know to read into anything we do together. And people don’t think I’m gay, either. They think I’m a whore, so no worries there.” 

Nayeon opens her mouth but words fail her. Sana only smiles.

“So,” Sana says, picking up her bag from the floor. She empties the contents onto the table, sending highlighters clattering across the worktop like marbles. “You’re sitting here reading, and I’m,” she yanks out a resisting, stubborn old notepad from her bag, “studying Japanese.”

Sana drops the busted book in front of her. Collecting the scattered pens from around them – some having made it into Nayeon’s side of the desk – Sana tosses them back into her bag one-by-one and then drops it at her feet.

“But you’re Japanese,” Nayeon questions, following the way Sana picks up, and then _rolls_ up her notebook. 

“Mhm,” Sana hums, slipping her notepad under her head as if some sort of cushion, “a free degree.”

Nayeon stares at her curiously. She doesn’t look very comfortable. “Not with how much you spend on tuition a year. Wouldn’t you wanna take something more useful?”

Sana’s eyes close, and she rapidly becomes sleepy. “I’m kind of a language prodigy.” 

Nayeon lowers her book, finding herself interested in the girl despite herself. “What else do you take?”

“I major in Linguistics, Foreign Languages, and History of Ancient Languages. Japanese is my language of choice, but I’m relearning it in English instead of Korean.” 

“You’re trilingual?”

Sana clicks her tongue and opens her eyes to wink. “Bi, actually,” she teases, before letting them both fall shut again. It’s a poor joke and Nayeon chooses not to react despite Sana’s soundless giggles.

“Really.”

“I’m not strong enough in English yet,” Sana recovers after a quiet moment, nestling her head into the book. 

“So you’ll test in English?”

Sana nods. 

“Then shouldn’t you study English more?”

Sana nods. “What about you?”

“I don’t need to study English. My exams are in Korean.”

“No,” Sana chuckles, “Bilingual?”

“Gay,” she mocks, her attempt at a wink failing. Nayeon still isn’t used to saying that word aloud and hates the way her throat dries, but quickly controls her discomfort. 

“You know,” Sana laughs, looking more amused than she does offended, “you’re not as funny as you think you are.” Sana must be trying to hide her smile behind the arms she folds in front of her mouth, but she moves a beat too late and her inflated cheeks give her away anyway. 

“Oh,” Nayeon forgets about the eyes that follow Sana, and allows Sana’s presence to tuck her paranoia into a temporary rest. “How funny do I think I am?”

Sana’s cheeks grow wider, and Nayeon feels herself relaxing.

* * *

Sana gets the call that wakes her around 3:40, and in her bleary-eyed confusion she takes little notice of the stream of notifications she’s gotten from Nayeon over the last hour or so, nor the alarm that should raise.

Until there’s knocking at her door, and Sana wakes a second time.

She stumbles past the piles of laundry that’s cascaded across the floor and takes a quick glance at Momo before peaking around the door.

The sight of Nayeon is jarring. She looks devastating, and Sana’s heart bleeds.

“What are you doing here at 4am?” Nayeon hardly needs to answer, so Sana doesn’t wait for her to. “Wait there, I’m going to come out, okay? Let me get some pants and we’ll go outside.” 

* * *

The moon agrees with her, makes Nayeon shine like she was born to glow under its fluorescent light. She's leaning with her elbows against the brick wall that encases the on-campus launderette, deserted at such an hour. Her mouth hangs open, presumably her nose too swollen to breathe through, and Sana can see how tired she is.

“Nayeon. What’s going on?”

“I have no idea,” Nayeon admits, moving to hug her pale chest with her arms. 

Nayeon isn't wearing much, and there doesn't need to be much light for Sana to see she's shivering across from her. “Where’s your coat?” 

Nayeon looks at Sana with her smudged eyeliner and dry red lips, and Sana feels sorry for her.

“I didn’t realise,” Nayeon shrugs lifelessly. 

They sit on the wall as time begins to stretch, allowing themselves to be touched by each other’s presence in silence until Sana starts to lose feeling in her limbs, and begins to fidget. 

“I don’t like the way this feels.” 

Her voice startles Sana, cutting sharply through the quiet in a tone so detached, Sana feels just as alone.

“The way what feels?”

Nayeon’s eyes are aimed at her feet. 

“This,” she waves her arms carefully in the space around them, her dark eyes flashing up. “We don’t even know each other. We’re not friends, so I don’t know why I’m here.”

Her arm is touching Sana’s, but Nayeon never looks anywhere but down. “Did you want to go inside?”

“No, I…” She throws her head back, hair lit silver by the moon, and Sana can see everything. Nayeon has definitely been crying, for at least a few hours it seems, her cheekbones so far sunken beneath the puffiness of her face, she looks _young_. “Do you want to go for a walk?” she asks, her eyes so piercing with emotion Sana had no chance of ever saying no.

“Sure,” Sana says, watching Nayeon stand. “Do you want me to grab you a coat?”

Nayeon shakes her head. 

“I’m going to go grab you a coat, okay?” Sana tells her. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Nayeon stands up against the wall just looking at Sana. Sana doesn't expect her to reply at all, but Nayeon seems to be in serious thought – probably deciding whether or not she can trust Sana to return, to trust Sana with this part of herself.

“Why are you out here with me?”

Sana pauses at that. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Nayeon can't disguise the lump in her throat, her scepticism, not when she's crumbling in front of Sana. "Why would you?"

Sana sighs, and decides not to let her disappointment show. She doesn't believe Nayeon's suspicious nature is intended to offend, but it stings to know she and Nayeon are still on completely different pages. "Because we're friends, and this is what friends do for each other."

The statement must strike Nayeon, because she retreats into silence and withdraws into her head, and Sana must speak softly when coaxing her out of it. "I'm going to get you that coat. Remember, don't move."

Had it been any other hour in the day, Sana probably wouldn't have heard her.

"Thank you." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic wont all be doom and gloom 
> 
> the whole bit about nayeon's experience growing up gay vs. sana's isn't going to be relatable to everyone, but i put it in there to give an insight into why nayeon, in particular, is as awkward as she is when it comes to any outward acknowledgement of her sexuality. she's at that point in her life where she's been isolating her feelings for so long now that despite jeongyeon and sana's presence in her life, she's still learning how to navigate her relationship with girls and be comfortable with it. she's basically a big baby who wishes she could be as unapologetically herself as sana is. because sana is a role model to us all, really.
> 
> tl;dr - nayeon's sexuality is something she accepts but is still adapting to.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry. it's been a bit.

_NAYEON_

It shouldn’t have happened. 

Nayeon is overcome with embarrassment. In fact, she can’t even bear thinking about how embarrassed she is, so she does the next best thing and simply decides not to think anymore. 

Although… If she _were_ still thinking, Nayeon would probably find humour in it all. 

College was easy to picture, as a high-school senior. Independence would grant her the confidence she lacked in school and would allow her to flourish under newfound freedom and self-expression. 

Nayeon would come out as a lesbian, and she’d have a supportive circle of friends that wouldn’t look at her differently every time she looked at another girl differently. Maybe she’d even fall in love.

The reality of it, however, is far less impressive. 

Her mind drifts to the drink between her fingers but does so in good heart. She’s not wallowing. With Jihyo on Facetime, honestly, she’d never get away with it. 

As grappling as the memory of finding solace in Sana was, it’s not quite enough to tip her off-kilter. She’s missed Jihyo, and as wonky as she may be, Jihyo will always, _always_ indulge her. 

Jihyo isn’t alone, but she interacts with Nayeon with the ease of privacy. She’s in her student accommodation with a glaze to her warm eyes, asking Nayeon questions about this new friend of hers she’s ‘fighting’ with, without asking Nayeon to compromise more information than she needs to. 

“Have you talked to her yet?” Jihyo asks in between instructing Alexa to skip to the next song. It shuffles to Taylor Swift and Jihyo settles back against her headboard. “You were pretty upset the last time we spoke.”

Nayeon scoffs without meaning to. “We’ve definitely talked. Or, I did. A lot of talking actually.” Jihyo doesn’t have the chance to raise an eyebrow before Nayeon’s rattling on. “I did a lot of crying, honestly. I think I need to tell her I’m not usually this emotional.”

Laughter bubbles from Jihyo’s throat, “that would be lying, Nayeon. It’s good you cried,” Jihyo offers, noting Nayeon’s frown. “It’s good to be vulnerable in front of friends.”

“I wouldn’t call us friends,” Nayeon mutters under her breath, but Jihyo’s tipping her head forward like she’s overheard. “Anyway. Are you going to drink with me or what?”

Jihyo moves out of frame and returns with fruity cider. “Yes, ma’am.”

“To us.” Nayeon beams, holding her glass up as if to cheers. 

Jihyo lifts hers and returns it. “Jeongyeon, too.”

Nayeon’s smile wilters.

“Yes,” she sobers. “Jeongyeon too.”

* * *

Eventually, after several days of pretending not to read Sana’s texts, Nayeon finds it in herself to reply. Sana doesn’t seem to be bothered about it, although Nayeon cannot recall a moment where Sana has seemed anything but joyful. They haven’t known each other for long, but Nayeon gets the impression that Sana is just _nice_.

Nayeon apologises anyway, just for good measure. For neglecting her texts or showing up at her dorm, she’s not entirely sure. Sana sends her a ‘Don’t be silly! :)’ in response, and then calls her.

Of course.

Sana bursts into conversation like no time or awkwardness has passed, about the last few days at college and the stress of this one piece of coursework that’s nearing its due date. She talks about Momo too, a friend of hers Nayeon assumes, and how Momo’s been upset lately but won’t tell Sana why.

It’s not long before Sana asks to meet up soon, and Nayeon finds herself agreeing. She’d like to see Sana again without tears in her eyes, and another small part might maybe just miss being in the physical presence of somebody who actually seems to like her. 

Maybe she _is_ wallowing. An appropriate amount, at least, for appropriate _reasons._

“Hey, Sana?”

Sana pauses mid-flow, and she’s _smiling_ , Nayeon knows it. As if she could see it, even. “Nayeonnie?”

Sana has this warmth about her that transcends physical boundaries – carried by her voice (and it must be seeping its way through Nayeon’s resolve because Nayeon never meant to answer the phone and now she’s asking to see her _tonight_ ).

Sana agrees and even goes as far as to sound _excited_ , which brings Nayeon back to their conversation about Sana having a project due not even five minutes ago, and Nayeon deflates.

“I’m sorry,” Nayeon sighs. “You have a lot of coursework to do. I didn’t mean to intrude on that.”

She hadn’t intended to be so selfish, to put her desire to see Sana above Sana’s schoolwork, as if she is in any way more important. Honestly? Nayeon hadn’t even meant to ask at all. 

Sana’s giggle flows down the line. “Are you trying to bail on our plans before we’ve even made one, Nayeon?”

Again, Nayeon sighs. “I wasn’t–”

“I know,” Sana says. “You were being nice. But dinner is nicer, no?”

They do eventually decide on going for food - a completely casual setting with no overly romantic decor. This was important to Nayeon. It’s not a date, after all, and they don’t need people assuming Nayeon has anyone other than Jeongyeon to go home with. 

It’s cute, for the most part. Nayeon has a weird jittery feeling in her stomach and it’s making her self conscious of the way she’s eating. Sana doesn’t seem to have that problem and washes down the appetisers with a glass of wine by the time Nayeon sikes herself into behaving normally.

In the end, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom to run some cold water over her wrists, hoping to soothe some of her sourceless anxiety. 

She can’t stop thinking about Jeongyeon. Or, well. In fact, she was doing perfectly fine without thinking about Jeongyeon at _all_ , truthfully, and it was upon that realisation that Nayeon began to flounder under Sana’s attention. 

She’s made a promise to herself. 

Nayeon isn’t naive. Trying not to be, anyway, and despite her and Jeongyeon’s differences at the moment Nayeon isn’t going to go down this path with Sana without putting up a fight if she feels she needs one. Sana’s presence cannot become more enjoyable than Jeongyeon’s. It cannot become more comfortable than Jeongyeon’s, and whether Sana likes to delude herself into labelling them both friends, Nayeon doesn’t think she’ll be able to survive either relationship should they truly encapsulate the label. 

Sana can never be her friend. Nor could she ever be anything more than that either, not if Nayeon is to protect herself and one day leave this arrangement unscathed. 

Nayeon watches as the water trickles over her wrists, thoughts drifting to Sana. 

She shouldn’t be here with her. Not at a restaurant, Sana is too—

Too, _what? Too nice? Too likeable?_ Too _gay?_

 _Someone is going to see straight through us,_ she begins to fuss, before her mind flashes back to their talk in the library. 

_People don’t think I’m gay, they think I’m a whore._

Nayeon sighs. It feels so long ago. 

At some point, she’ll need to learn to categorise her paranoia into what’s mindless and what actually has the basis to exist. Planting any old seed without checking its toxicity before allowing it to take root definitely isn’t healthy, nor is it particularly smart. 

It’s just—

 _Fuck sake._ Who _cares_ if she finds Sana charming? She needs to get her head out of her ass. Sana has genuinely been making an attempt at keeping all public interactions strictly platonic, or well, at least her version of platonic, and it’s on _Nayeon_ for reading the situation differently. 

And the thing is, Nayeon _has_ watched Sana interact with other people. She has this way of flirting; her eyes brighten and her smile softens, and it feels so personal it takes Nayeon a beat too long to remind herself that Sana looks at _everyone_ like this. 

It _is_ everyone Sana does this too, so surely, Nayeon should be able to relax over a lingering eye or two. Nothing crazy is happening, and in fact, why does this idea bother her more? Why does the idea of Sana’s flirtation being so impersonal send an uncomfortable shiver down her spine?

_Everyone thinks I’m a whore._

Nayeon has never actually taken those words for what they are because Sana had only been trying to make a point, but Nayeon startles at the concept that Sana may actually be doing this with other people, too. (Which is well within her rights, but—)

Surely Sana would’ve mentioned it. For hygienic reasons, above all else. Then again, Nayeon admitted to having a girlfriend and Sana never asks when they last slept together. 

_Shit._

It’s not jealousy, it isn’t. That’s not what this sickly feeling is.

It’s less about not wanting Sana to be with others and more about knowing where she stands with her, because yeah, they may be sleeping together but they certainly don’t belong to one another. 

Nayeon has Jeongyeon, and well, Sana could just about have anyone. Maybe that’s becoming one of Nayeon’s newest insecurities. Sometimes, on her worst days, she wonders if that’s what Sana finds appealing — the fact that Nayeon isn’t someone she can have without conditions. Perhaps it’s Nayeon’s commitment to another girl that makes this more fun for Sana. Maybe she gets off on secrets. 

God. What a mess she’s already found herself in. 

Nayeon doesn’t know how long she’s been away from their table, but she makes a mental note to bring up sexual health when they next see each other. Nayeon needs to know if they should both be regularly testing, and. Oh. 

Nayeon didn’t hear Sana enter behind her – but she senses Sana’s presence milliseconds before she feels the girl’s hands on her waist, her lips ghosting the set of her shoulder.

“Wanna tell me what’s bothering you?” 

Just like that, the nerves in Nayeon’s stomach blossom into an entirely different kind of feeling, and she’s delirious enough to turn to kiss Sana before she can really think it through. 

Sana immediately flurries them into one of the bathroom stalls, and Nayeon thinks, _Cheeky,_ followed by _oh my god we’re back to doing this in public._

It’s excitement that floods Nayeon’s veins when Sana has her flush against the door and tells her to lock it. It’s both exhilarating and petrifying knowing anyone could walk in and find them, but with Sana tugging at the waistline of her jeans, Nayeon struggles to focus on the crisis this should be.

Nayeon has an inkling that they’re not going to make it out of this bathroom in time for the mains. 

Amidst Nayeon’s tongue pressing at Sana’s lips, a quiet shudder shakes through from Sana’s throat, and Nayeon can’t help but melt against her. Sana opens her mouth and allows Nayeon the control, hands sliding underneath Sana’s shirt to cup either side of her ribs, nails dragging across the skin she finds there. 

“ _Nayeon_ ,” Sana gushes, “baby.”

Nayeon isn’t sure what’s changed, but she recognises that something has. A few weeks ago the pet name would’ve had Nayeon withdrawing from Sana’s touch, but Nayeon finds herself working _harder_. 

_baby._

It encourages Nayeon on in ways it shouldn’t, in ways that feel too personal. Fondness sliding through Sana’s lips feels an awful lot like intimacy, like secrets, and it shouldn’t make her heart race the way it does.

Sana was supposed to be a friend, perhaps not even that, but god, has Nayeon wound herself around Sana’s body like a lover. 

Sana’s breath tickling the skin beneath her ear, the weight of Sana’s body she’s propping against the wall. Sana’s eyes, painted and dark, falling closed with each continuous effort Nayeon makes. 

She’s pulling sounds from Sana that she realises she’s becoming fiercely protective of. Nayeon doesn’t have time to be confused about it – of wanting these whimpers and hushed moans to be hers and hers alone – she can unscramble it on the way home. 

Sana climaxes around Nayeon’s name, her mouth, her palms. 

Nayeon is hopeless for the expression on Sana’s face, so pretty and delicate, pleasure still ghosting the silhouette of her lips, eyes, mouth. Nayeon wants more, reaching for Sana’s hips to anchor her in place. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Sana exhales, dotting kisses to Nayeon’s jaw. “I want you comfortable for what I want to do with you.”

Nayeon is nodding emphatically, but her hands skate across Sana’s skin, hungry, still. 

By the time they gather themselves enough to leave, there’s a new couple sitting at their table - dinner is long forgotten.

Dinner-dashing (no matter how accidental) is the last thing on Nayeon’s mind when Sana promises to get them home in time for dessert.

They scurry out the exit when their waiter is occupied elsewhere, Sana giggling and drawing her along. 

Jesus _. What happened to caring about public perception, Nayeon?_

* * *

As it happens, Nayeon is far too… something… to ask Sana if there’s anybody else. If anything, Nayeon doesn’t believe in her ability to control her expressions and keep the neutrality in her voice. She knows herself enough to understand that an answer she may not like to hear may provoke an unfair response, and she’s still making it up to Sana for the first few outbursts.

Much like a mature adult, what Nayeon inadvertently does instead is… smother the girl? 

Sana doesn’t seem to mind it so much, but Nayeon can feel herself becoming suffocating and yet she cannot find it in herself to just… stop. She’s around Sana _constantly_ , and sometimes Sana looks at her in what she can only describe as pure bewilderment after she sneaks out after round three and then shows back up an hour later for round four.

Nayeon isn’t sure why she can’t just seem to let it go, let Sana _breathe_ , but Sana is perceptive enough to know something’s up and hasn’t yet asked, or told her to fuck off. Which, well.

Sana seems to flourish with Nayeon’s rapt attention _anyway_ , so why should she stop? If Sana’s enjoying this, then there’s no harm done.

Besides, _Nayeon_ has been enjoying it, too. A little too much. Definitely too much.

She’ll just have to test regularly. ~~Oh, who is she kidding? That’s the~~ ~~_last_ thing on her mind. ~~

“No, really, it’s like my nerve endings are on fire. I mean it. You’ll have to go slow.”

Sana sounds amused, running a finger down Nayeon’s chest. “Are you really that sensitive right now?”

“Yes.” Nayeon huffs, frustration oozing into her tone. It feels unnecessary to remind Sana they’ve technically been at this for _hours._ Besides, Nayeon wouldn’t know what to say if Sana asked her why she’s still here. “If you don’t get off me when I tell you my body will _throw_ you off. I can’t help it. My body just reacts. I’m warning you.”

“You can’t kick me off if I tie you down,” Sana muses, but there’s something in the way she dresses it that makes it sound more like a suggestion than a tease. 

Nayeon’s heart leaps to her throat. She’s never tried it personally, but she’s heard from Jihyo that it can make you really emotional, and that’s the _last_ thing Nayeon needs. “Won’t that just make me cry?”

“I don’t know,” Sana answers calmly, dragging the back of her nails down the inside of Nayeon’s trembling thigh, making her hiss. “Have you cried before during sex?”

Nayeon pauses thoughtfully. “Maybe no tying me down.”

* * *

_SANA_

Sana observes Nayeon fighting through her drowsiness, and this is Sana’s favourite time. The excessive amount of orgasms are great, but interacting with Nayeon when her ability to properly regulate her emotions has weakened is a glimpse at another side of the girl not many people see. And oh, how Sana loves being able to see.

Sana’s heart is at the back of her throat, and she’s _itching_ to lure out the side of Nayeon that the girl has boxed in, to discover Nayeon’s heart in her most honest, subdued state. 

Because here’s the thing: Nayeon is hard work. She’s aloof and skittish, but the indifference she exudes is only to be taken at face value. 

She’s an introvert who struggles – not articulating her thoughts, but allowing herself the comfort of sharing them. She stays quiet where Sana would compensate for the silence, and would rather a whole crowd take an instant disliking to her over a small misunderstanding than explain the mistake. Nayeon would rather be hated than known, and for a girl who has such tenacity in creating an atmosphere, she’s wildly fearful and irrational in the face of her anxiety. 

It’s mindblowing because mood swings aside, Nayeon is kind of lovely and Sana can’t help but adore her, and Nayeon would _hate_ that. Except it’s _because_ Sana adores her that she simply cannot allow Nayeon’s own self-worth to manifest into the way they interact. 

There’s been a lot to learn about Nayeon in no words and no time, especially when their communication doesn’t extend far outside of the walls of Sana’s dorm room, but Sana is nothing if not keen. The more Nayeon tries to shield herself from Sana, the more Sana drives to split her back open - and no amount of repatching will keep Sana out for very long. 

If Nayeon wants to scare the world away with angry words and a punishing scowl, then she can very much try - but Sana won’t bite. She knows better now than to believe it.

God, Nayeon is so _stupid._

All Sana finds herself wanting to do is kiss Nayeon’s dumb face. Kiss her dumb head and that dumb mole hiding beneath her brow, the freckles splaying faintly across her nose. Wants to tell her how pretty she is like this, how much softer she is after the energy she usually puts into fiercely guarding burns out to a faint flicker. 

Like this, Nayeon is the most beautiful, and Sana wishes she could express her affections in a way that doesn’t end with Nayeon bolting out of her door. 

Nayeon’s eyes remain heavy, laying almost perfectly still. She’s awake, Sana can tell, but she doesn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation. In fact, Sana suspects the only reason Nayeon is still here is that she knows _Sana_ is awake too, and can’t handle the awkwardness that’ll come with sneaking out so blatantly. Besides, the girl just _looks_ exhausted. Sana’s stamina is twice that of Nayeon’s and even she’s been struggling to adjust to Nayeon’s heightened libido. 

Sana senses an opportunity.

“I think…” Sana braces, risking bristling Nayeon, “instead of lying here staring at the walls, we should talk.”

A beat.

Sana suspects there’s a decision to be made about whether or not Nayeon is going to pretend to be asleep. 

And then, “About...?”

“I don’t know, normal stuff.” Sana hoists herself up on her elbow and leans beside Nayeon, allowing the casualness of Nayeon’s tone to envelope her into a sense of ease. “I was talking to Momo the other day and I realised I know almost nothing about you. Isn’t that crazy to you? I couldn’t think of a single thing about your personal life except you have a girlfriend, but I could list a hundred things that I know about your body. How it works, _what_ works, what you sound and taste like. But, your favourite colour?” Sana blows out of her cheeks. “Nothing.”

Nayeon’s initial response to Sana’s ramble is to scowl with flushed cheeks. “You talk to your friend about me?”

“No, of course not. I know nothing about you, how could I?”

Nayeon’s voice is groggy. “I don’t do pillow talk if that’s what you want.”

Sana’s eyes roll. She already appreciates Nayeon’s stance on pointless conversations for the sake of squandering silence. “I don’t want pillow talk. I want to _know_ you.”

“Then ask me something.”

The naturalness excites Sana. “Anything?”

Nayeon hums, heavy and submissive. She has the stamina of a grapefruit and has been fighting a nap since the moment Sana had rolled off of her. “You can ask me anything but that doesn’t mean I’ll answer everything.”

“Okay.” Sana will take it. “What age did you realise you were gay?”

Nayeon stiffens but doesn’t entirely reject the question. “Eleven.”

“Do your parents know you’re gay?”

“Why is this important to know about me?” The sting in Nayeon’s voice isn’t deliberate if the reddening of her ears is anything to go by. She breaks eye-contact with Sana which is hardly scandalous either. Sana had a suspicion her parents were a delicate topic. 

She shouldn’t speculate, but there’s a reason behind this direction of questioning which has been banging about in Sana’s head for a while now. Since the night Nayeon had shown up at her dorm in pieces, with multiple missed calls from her parents.

Of course, Sana hadn’t poked around. Nayeon came to her trembling and overtaken with emotion - any prying would’ve felt an awful lot like taking advantage. But still, she wondered. 

“I’m painting a picture,” Sana shrugs, “Besides, it doesn’t need to be _important_. Knowing your favourite colour isn’t going to change my life either, but it’s still nice to know! So. Do they know?”

A sigh. “Yes, they know.” 

Sana smiles, pleased with her cooperation. “How did you tell them?”

“I didn’t. They went through my phone and found out through a text message I had sent to a friend.”

“Jesus.” Now that Sana was not expecting, but it’s definitely a yes to a tense relationship with her parents. “Were they controlling?”

Nayeon's face hardens, and Sana’s stomach wales with anticipation of what the sensitivity of this topic may bring.

“No. With my baby sister, yes, but I was left alone.” Nayeon takes a sideways glance and explains in a fluster. “I didn’t spend much time with them, and I guess they eventually decided they didn’t know enough about what their eldest daughter was getting up to and decided to have a look for themselves.” 

Sana can sense that Nayeon is becoming irritable because she’s rolling off her answers without really thinking about them, and Sana can’t tell if this is progress in matters of trust, or if this will just blow up in her face if Nayeon blurts the wrong thing.

She almost hates to ask. “Are they okay with you being a lesbian?”

Flinching in distaste, Sana can see a grimace working its way across Nayeon’s features, but doesn’t really understand why. 

“They love me, but they don’t love... _it_. Which, I…” There’s a beat of silence, and then two, and Nayeon is still cringing. “I don’t get how those can coexist.”

Sana watches Nayeon’s profile raffle through several emotions at once. She looks crushed, almost ashamed of having allowed herself to indulge. Nayeon’s eyes are still skating across the ceiling when Sana asks, softly, “What do you mean?” 

Nayeon folds over, scooping the blankets up over her chest. She turns her back to Sana and tucks the duvet under her chin, protecting every visible part Sana once had of Nayeon’s face from view. 

It only strikes Sana then that this is probably an intense conversation to have while they’re almost naked, and she should’ve known Nayeon, of all people, would draw the line at being this honest while this exposed. Still, Sana hopes that in the silence, Nayeon is simply unscrambling her thoughts.

Nothing comes, so Sana slips back down against the sheets. A lot is going on in Nayeon’s mind that she just hasn’t figured out how to be honest about yet, but Sana believes they’ll get there eventually though. It’s what, for the most part, stops her from pushing. 

She wants Nayeon to understand that nothing bad will happen just because she’s voiced her feelings, but demanding them from her isn’t how that message can be delivered. Patience is what Nayeon needs. Patience and a little compassion. 

And then, Nayeon surprises her.

“I’m going to text you.”

Sana turns her face towards Nayeon’s back. “What?”

Nayeon grabs her phone at the same time that Sana rushes to grab hers from the floor next to her bed. “Your question, I’m going to text you.”

It’s twenty minutes of Sana recounting the freckles dotted across Nayeon’s spine, twenty minutes of wonder, of refraining from running her fingers along the dip of Nayeon’s hip. But Sana gets an answer, and the sheer depth is what stuns her first.

  
  


_im grateful they didn’t kick me out. and they say nothing changed, but it bothers me that they dont care enough to look it all up. they’ve missed out on a huge part of my life and they don’t care about what that was like for me. they have to ignore i’m gay to keep loving me, and thats fucked. loving is a huge part of life. it’s what we live for, right? to experience love in all these different kinds of ways? it angers me that they’ve nurtured their own lives by loving freely, but pray that i never will just because the person i’ll love isn’t going to be a man. i think it’s cruel to wish away those experiences for me. it’s selfish. but they didn’t beat me. and they didn’t kick me out, so people say i should be grateful for having such tolerant parents. but i don’t feel it. i know i am, but i don’t feel lucky. i want to be more than just tolerated_

_the worst part is i knew it was coming. growing up listening to the way they talk about gay people without realising they’re talking_ ** _to_** _one… you think you’re prepared for it. i grew up numbing myself to the idea of being alone, knowing it was only a matter of time before i’ll lose them. but when it happens… having your parents look at you like they were betrayed by their own child... it was awful. all those years preparing myself was nothing like the real thing_

_so to answer your question, no they don’t accept it. but they tolerate it. and i hate them for it_

| 

14:23  
  
---|---  
  
For a long time, the room becomes still - the noiselessness only fractured by the soft sound of Nayeon’s unsteady breathing. 

For a long time, Sana is speechless.

Thinking of the right words, the right thing to say… Sana always felt as if she was good at comforting people, at taking their troubles and bending them back into shape. But this… this isn’t something Sana can fix. Rejection from family isn’t something Sana knows personally, or can even imagine for herself, but it’s clear Nayeon’s parents have a lot of involvement in Nayeon’s insecurities.

 _God._ What it must’ve been like for Nayeon, growing up surrounded by people she knew could never truly love all of her, people she could never truly trust? 

Sana’s thoughts drift to the family who makes her feel safe, to the family sworn to protect her, and attempts to envision a life if she were the one who had to protect herself from _them._

Slipping her hand beneath the covers, Sana seeks out Nayeon’s own, clutched protectively against her chest - and doesn’t think twice before grabbing onto it. Nayeon has never allowed affection before, not even in tears at Sana’s door, but her stiff posture begins to yield, and slowly, Nayeon intertwines her fingers with Sana’s and squeezes. 

She allows Sana to hold her and then allows Sana to cuddle into her from behind, and Sana is so grateful for that trust.

“I’m sorry,” comes tumbling out of Sana’s lips, and Nayeon must feel it against the skin of her neck, shuddering. “You deserve so much more.”

Sana plants a kiss there, probably pushing her luck entirely, but she just… She wants Nayeon to _feel_ it, feel how she cares for her. Feel how much she wishes things for Nayeon were different. 

Nayeon might be crying - she becomes dreadfully still and her breathing manufactured, but Sana doesn’t bring it up. In fact, they end up falling asleep like that, Sana’s nose tickled by the hair at the nape of Nayeon’s neck. 

It’s reckless, holding Nayeon the way she wishes she always could, and it isn’t until Sana wakes hours later and Nayeon is gone when Sana will wonder if that was a good idea.

* * *

_NAYEON_

Nayeon stares down at the hands that touched Sana. 

Being with Sana always feels like a washed-out memory afterwards, and Nayeon wonders if getting that caught up in a person – to the extent where it feels almost unreal, like the experience was merely a fantasy that’s escaped her – is normal. 

It happened only hours ago, and yet? Nayeon’s already losing details, the memories of Sana’s warmth, her sounds, slipping between her fingers like running water. It hasn’t been long and yet Nayeon itches to rediscover her.

Nayeon swears next time she’ll be more present. 

Imaginably, perhaps Nayeon was in over her head with Sana. Maybe Sana was always going to become so much more to her than Nayeon had intended, so much more than she currently feels able to handle. 

She’s due to meet Sana again in a few hours, but hasn’t been able to hype herself up enough to text her after sneaking out on her earlier this afternoon. She knows the first thing she’ll see when she opens Sana’s messages is her own message about her parents – and she simply cannot stomach the reminder.

Nayeon doesn’t open up to people. Nayeon _hates_ that she opened up to Sana. Sharing these glimpses into her life, Sana _knowing_ these things is making her feel more like a girlfriend than a lover, and that’s not a boundary she was quite ready to cross. 

And yet this isn’t the first time she’s crossed it.

Nayeon never intends to _see_ any of it again and opens her phone to clear her chat with Sana so she never has to _think_ about it again, either.

She’s content in pretending that afternoon never even happened. 

* * *

“Oh wow.”

Blood rushes to Nayeon’s cheeks, wearing a fierce frown. “What? Why are you looking down there like that? You’re freaking me out.”

Sana continues to blankly stare between Nayeon’s legs, and there’s a brewing panic in Nayeon’s eyes. “I’m just shocked, is all.”

“And why are you shocked?” Nayeon sounds annoyed, and perhaps even weary. “I’m not shaving for you every single day if that’s what you want, so you’re gonna have to get over it. And quickly,” Nayeon glances at the clock. 

Sana ignores her. “Hello Kitty?”

Nayeon is already huffing, ready to argue, and then… “What?” Realisation tracks across her features and boy does she feel ridiculous. “Oh.”

“Definitely experiencing a little culture shock right now.” Sana reveals, eyebrows raised and a smile threatening to burst free from her controlled expression.

“Well, it’s not like I was expecting this. We have class soon, and I came here for _you_.”

Sana breaks then, giggling, unable to help it. Nayeon's becoming quickly flustered beneath her, and it’s a joy to watch. “Hello Kitty underwear, though?”

If Nayeon wasn’t so wound up she would tell Sana to stuff it. She didn’t sleep well last night, and Nayeon really wasn’t lying when she said she only came over to please Sana. 

She had oozed neediness when she’d called, and Nayeon has recently learned that she cannot handle Sana’s breathiness when she gets a head start over the phone, and came over as soon as she could. She wasn’t expecting Sana to flip Nayeon onto her back the second after she came around Nayeon’s fingers.

“Shut up.”

“It’s cute, I guess?” 

Nayeon pulls Sana down by her shoulders, and into her mouth. “Shut _up.”_

Sana returns the kiss in kind, and when she pulls back it’s to look at Nayeon in her special Sana-kind-of-way. “Hmmm, make me?”

It’s playful, but Nayeon takes it as the challenge she sees it for. They have class soon but supposing that she’s quick…

“If I must,” Nayeon says, pushing Sana’s shoulder backwards and using her knee against her hip to push Sana onto her side. Sana receives the message and allows Nayeon to roll her back onto her back, a smile so devilish Nayeon feels like she’s already losing.

And Nayeon refuses to lose.

Lifting her hand up Sana’s cheeks with the intention of wiping that smile off her face, Nayeon instead finds herself distracted by the pinkness of Sana’s lips, the softness.

It’s thoughtless. Nayeon will make a case that her best ideas come when she chooses not to think, and lifts her fingers to Sana’s lips and pushes against them. 

Sana looks astonished - like isn’t sure what to make of Nayeon’s fingers inside her mouth much like Nayeon wasn’t sure what she was doing putting them in there. But then Sana’s tongue moves, making a place for Nayeon, and then there’s pressure. 

Sana’s teeth have made it to the base of Nayeon’s fingers when Nayeon realises she might’ve accidentally kick-started a whole new thing, and now there’s definitely something that needs to be done about the way her stomach coils, but it isn’t something either of them really has time for.

She doesn’t want to, and it’s definitely a fight, but Nayeon does eventually manage to pull herself out of Sana’s mouth before her arousal has a chance to escalate further. She feels unable to speak, but she needs a new focus and conversation might be all she’s got to distract herself from the sight of Sana swallowing, and tasting herself on her own tongue.

“I think I’ve always wanted to do that,” she confesses instead, feeling awkwardly turned on atop of Sana with no real way to hide it.

“Stick your fingers in someone’s mouth?”

“No,” Nayeon says, clamping tighter around Sana’s thigh. “Stick my fingers in your mouth.”

Sana looks pensive beneath her, turning her head to the side towards the wall clock. Nayeon follows her line of sight and it clicks. She knows exactly what kind of calculation Sana’s making. 

“No. Class is in 30 minutes,” Nayeon starts to complain, a whine bleeding into her voice because she knows they don’t have time and yet… she knows she’s not winning this one. “We don’t have—” 

“That’s fine, but _I’m_ skipping. You don’t have to, but I’m going to stay here and play.” 

“I have a test next week.” Nayeon pouts, trying her utmost hardest to appeal to Sana’s soft side, but it’s a weak attempt. She bites. “Fuck you. You’re not staying here without me.”

* * *

Nayeon might have to reevaluate what it means to lose, because she feels like a winner, still. She’s getting up to rummage Sana’s fridge because god knows this girl refuses to feed her, ignoring Sana’s shamelessly unhelpful comments from the bedroom.

Nayeon doesn’t make it a habit to scavenge through people’s cupboards, not when it feels this domestic, but Sana’s been an absolute demon and she’s _starved._ She’ll surely fade away quicker than a doordash driver could find them, and it’s a risk Nayeon’s not willing to take.

“I’ve always thought girls looked hotter in just their underwear than when they do when they’re just naked.” 

Nayeon turns to raise an eyebrow at Sana, tilting her head. “Would you like me to put some clothes on?” 

“God, no. Stay where you are. I was just saying,” Sana explains, face partially obstructed by the pillow her hair is sprawled across. “Sometimes when you put underwear on to go do something it just makes me want you even more. I like undressing you.”

Nayeon closes her eyes and tries not to encourage Sana. It’s late, and she should’ve torn herself away from Sana’s bed and left hours ago. _And_ she’s finally just found sustenance in the shape of a cocopops bar.

“I’m not sure if Hello Kitty is doing it for me, though,” Sana says allusively, and Nayeon has had enough teasing for one day. 

It takes minutes for Sana to start whimpering Nayeon’s name, and as Sana comes, squirming among loose bedsheets with a smile on her face, Nayeon realises that perhaps Sana has just won this round, too. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the lovely comments, and for being so patient with me <3

_Sana’s favourite thing is kissing Nayeon through her underwear, her goal to tease. A frustrated Nayeon reminded Sana of one of those bristled kittens, hissing and seething with irritation but lacking bite. Nayeon loses her edge when she’s like this, becomes malleable and more easily handled, and Sana loves that she honest to god_ whines _. Nayeon is helpless, squirming under Sana’s mouth — begging, despite her pride._

_Sana loves what she turns her into._

_“Don’t annoy me,” Nayeon whined, recognising she was probably the neediest she’d ever felt._

_Sana noticed, her smile turning wicked. “Then do as you’re told.”_

_Nayeon whimpers._ “Please.”

_With Nayeon beneath her, flushed pink cheeks and blown pupils, so soft, so pretty… Sana was overcome._

_Warm with affection, with endearment, Sana brought her lips to brush Nayeon’s in a kiss so soft, so unlike them, Sana would later swear she felt something shift within them both._

_“I feel like you were born to be a pillow princess,” came Sana’s attempt at a distraction, enjoying the way Nayeon’s eyes snapped up to meet hers._

_Nayeon bristled. “What do you mean by that?”_

_What came next was an uncontrolled spilling of words out of her mouth, and a stark realisation that trouble was to follow._

_“I can’t imagine there being a single person who wouldn’t rather be spoiling you,” Sana confessed wistfully, meaning the words more seriously than she had intended. “Making you happy.”_

_“Okay,” Nayeon rolled her eyes, refusing to be charmed. “So what did you really mean by that?”_

In hindsight, Sana really should have seen it coming. 

Her recognition occurred only an hour ago and yet Sana feels the fatigue of carrying them as if it had been weeks. Feelings. The weight of them strikes her, but Sana will not allow herself to suffocate beneath them.

So, she has a crush on Nayeon.

She can handle it.

Rolling onto her side, Sana pulls her arm from beneath Nayeon and uses it to trace the outline of her spine. Her fingers are cool against Nayeon’s skin. 

“Feels nice,” Nayeon murmurs, lifting her chin to readjust the placement of her head on Sana’s pillow. Looking a bit bleary-eyed in her post-orgasm haze, Nayeon attempts to smile up at Sana, encouragingly, gratefully, but her mouth falls slack and her eyes droop shut almost as fast as she’d opened them. 

The corners of Sana’s mouth lift. She’s learned a lot of things during her time with Nayeon.

Nayeon has a freckle on the inside of her thigh that her underwear covers. Post-sex, she’s a lot whinier than any other person she’s been with, is groggier and demands attention from Sana in odd, unconventional ways. 

Im Nayeon is an unapologetic bottom. That, of all, was the most startling. 

The thought makes Sana grin. 

Nayeon’s mouth has fallen open. Although barely, there’s still a gap between Nayeon’s lips big enough for Sana to stick her finger in, so of course, she has to. 

“You okay there?” Sana coos, lips curving around a smile. “The baby falling asleep already?” 

Nayeon grumbles, blowing out a puff of air through her lips as if to clear the obstruction of Sana’s finger. It does nothing, but in an act of mercy does Sana remove her finger anyway.

Nayeon peeks one eye open, frowning, and tries with all her might to focus steadily on Sana. Her focus almost immediately breaks. “ _N_ _o_.” 

“ _S_ _ure_. Baby.”

Nayeon smiles and it’s contagious.

It’s taken weeks, but Sana is pleased that Nayeon _finally_ takes comfort in their arrangement. No longer is she embarrassed to admit she finds refuge in Sana in other places save from between her thighs. 

At first, after sex, Nayeon would disappear. When Sana woke, the only signs that Nayeon had even been with her were the marks dotted across Sana’s chest and an uncomfortable stickiness between her thighs.

As Nayeon grew bolder did her visits begin to extend until the early hours of the morning. Then, a more confident Nayeon started appearing at Sana’s dorm. One that liked naps, and had a touchingly soothing presence (though still with a mouth much sharper than her newly affectionate, wandering hands).

“Mhm.” Nayeon hums in a way that sounds proud, and moves to press a kiss to the part of Sana’s body closest to her. She doesn’t open her eyes to check which part of Sana her lips meet. “Talk to me.”

This, which Sana loves, is one of the best changes in Nayeon. She actually _asks_ for things now, which… so here’s the thing.

Nayeon doesn’t _do_ pillow talk, that had been one of the conditions that Nayeon had set once she stayed for more than ten minutes after she’d climax. _I’ll sleep with you, but I’m not going to talk to you after._ Only, Nayeon _does_ do pillow talk, in a roundabout, minimally-participant kind of way. She enjoys it from Sana, goes as far as demanding unstimulating conversation that doesn’t require any coherent response beyond an occasional “mhmm” on her part, but it’s not because Nayeon is necessarily interested in Sana’s intellect.

Before Sana and Nayeon had grown so accustomed to their arrangement, Sana would stir to a rattled Nayeon, barking interrogative, confrontational questions – ones that required complicated, intricate thought-out answers. It came off as intimidating, and Sana couldn’t understand where the aggression was coming from. 

As it turns out, Nayeon was merely exploiting Sana’s talent for talking and had just been struggling to find a way to communicate to Sana that she enjoyed falling asleep to the sound of her voice – without the embarrassment that would come from a confession. (A confession she eventually gave anyway). 

But things have changed now. Things are _better_. Nayeon asks and doesn’t mind that Sana knows these nuances about her. She’s more pleasant, less cagey, and more relaxed in an overall sense. 

(Sana kind of really likes how things are now. Kind of really likes Nayeon).

Some things, however, haven’t changed. 

Nayeon still leaves. Whether she comes back in a few hours or several days, the case remains the same. It’s a blatant reminder that Sana is a means of passing time until Nayeon can make it home to something better.

Perhaps Sana should be more grateful. Nayeon isn’t bursting out of her door any more like she used to, and no longer does Sana have to watch Nayeon scarper with that look of horror on her face after what they’d done, what they’d shared together. But Nayeon _will_ always leave. Their time together is always temporary, and her return to Jeongyeon will always be inevitable. 

It stings Sana in ways she knows are selfish. Hurts Sana in that despite Nayeon and Jeongyeon’s clear problems, Nayeon will always find sanctuary in her instead. Hurts that Nayeon still goes home and takes all of that anger, all of that anger and hopelessness, and pain, and heartbreak. Takes it all over Sana. 

She doesn’t mean to be so emotional, but she cannot ignore her sensitivity any more than she wishes it didn’t exist. She actually cares for Nayeon - feelings aside, it would be hard for Sana not to - and if she could share her worries with Momo she knows her best friend would be telling her the same thing she already knows to be true.

_Nayeon is not yours._

It’s not even about possession. She knows the risk she took when she agreed to this deal with Nayeon, but perhaps hadn’t anticipated how much she would genuinely enjoy their time together. How much she enjoys just being beside her, doing nothing in particular but just _being_. She craves Nayeon as a friend just as much as she craves her as a lover. 

To some degree, Sana envies the version of this story where perhaps they never slept together at all, for she knows deep down that once this secret between them dies there’ll be nothing else left. Nayeon would say thank you, and move on. And Sana would be hopeless to stop her.

Sana would give anything to be wrong.

There’s a sharp pain to her side, and when she turns her head Nayeon is retracting her hand back under the covers. 

Sana blinks. “Huh? Sorry.”

Rubbing the tiredness out of her eyes, Nayeon manages a, “talk to me?” around a yawn. The sight sparks something in Sana's chest, and Sana waves away her negative thoughts. 

Nayeon comfortably exhausted in her bed, nesting into her sheets like she has nowhere else to be — Sana feels a rush of affection burst through her. She wants to be present for this. Absorb as much of this moment as she can, commit the details to memory. She’s not going to waste time wallowing in pity when she could be enjoying Nayeon’s company while it lasts instead. 

“Your eyes look pretty in this light.” Nayeon murmurs, surprising her. Sana hadn’t realised Nayeon was watching her. 

“They do?”

“Mmm,” she hums, fighting away another yawn from creeping back up her throat. She loses, eyes following suit and bowing shut. “They’re your best feature.” 

If Nayeon is honest, she had always liked Sana’s eyes, even before. She liked, still likes, looking into them, having them look at her. Sana’s eyes have a hypnotic way of holding people.

“I like your thighs.” 

Frowning, Nayeon opens one eye. “My thighs? That just sounds like you don’t know how to compliment me.”

Sana shrugs. “I’m being truthful. It’s always bothered me that thighs are never mentioned in the boobs or ass debate.”

“Because they’re thighs.”

“Yeah, and they’re sexy.” Sana doesn’t have to move much to get on top of Nayeon. “I just think thighs are so much more attractive, and yours are really, really nice.”

Nayeon gives her a questioning look, failing to read her. 

“Not that you don’t have really nice everything-else,” Sana clarifies, leaning down to kiss the dip in Nayeon’s chest.

Nayeon squirms at the uncomfortable tickling sensation Sana’s long hair leaves as it follows Sana’s head lower down her body, hyper-aware of Sana’s every movement. 

“Your boobs are great too, and your hips are… I like them a lot.”

Sana’s eyes stray even further, then, particularly focused now on one select area between Nayeon’s legs. 

The corners of her mouth curl upwards. “And you have a really, _really_ pretty–”

Nayeon darts upright to clamp her hand over Sana’s mouth, not quite ready to hear that one said aloud. She ignores almost having clattered Sana’s ribs with her knees in the process and delivers Sana her best look of surrender. “Please. Just. I get it.”

Nayeon carefully removes her hand from around Sana’s mouth, revealing her childish smirk.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t mind spelling it out for you with, like, my tongue or something.”

Nayeon, in spite of how ridiculous Sana is being, blushes. “Shut _up_.”

Sana kisses the freckle on the inside of Nayeon’s thigh. 

“Make me.”

* * *

Nayeon wakes up gradually.

She’s yet to open her eyes but her brain is already receptive to her surroundings, the sensation of breath filtering over the skin of her neck, a weight draped loosely over her hip in the shape of Sana’s arm.

Falling asleep with Sana pressed against her back... Nayeon struggled for words to explain the gentle hum in her chest. She could feel Sana’s heartbeat, strong but low, and it felt more than just. 

Her phone is tucked beneath her somewhere – Nayeon can feel the heat from it burning her calf – but it’s the light that seeps through the curtains casting washed-out shades of orange onto the wall parallel that tells Nayeon she should’ve left hours ago.

Untangling herself from Sana, careful not to wake her, Nayeon locates a pair of shorts on the floor and a shirt of hers folded on top of Sana’s dressing table. She gets changed in the bathroom but doesn’t click the door shut behind her, for whenever it’s Nayeon that’s sleeping it’s always the small sounds that wake her up. 

Re-entering the bedroom a few minutes later, Nayeon treads gingerly, the lofty breeze stinging at her naked thighs. Sana’s limbs stretch out across the sheets, but the bed still manages to look enormous.

There’s something unsettling about Sana lying alone, her body smooth and bare and unblemished, but alone. Nayeon moves to pick up the white fluffy bedspread discarded on the floor and with a sigh, dresses it over her.

Feeling Sana’s absence her body seems to have rapidly cooled, and it yearns for the warmth Sana’s body would bring. Nayeon wants nothing more than to get back into bed and curl back up beside Sana, into her, but is afraid she’ll never leave again the day she does. 

She risks a glance back where Sana lays once she’s nearing the door, and her heart leaps to her throat when she realises Sana is watching her. 

Nayeon quickens to the door before Sana can say anything, but her hand is only just beginning to twist the door handle when Sana calls out for her. 

“Can’t you stay?”

The handle stays at an angle, Nayeon’s fingers still curled around it, fixed where she stands. Nayeon daren’t make the mistake of looking back at her twice. 

“Just this once?” Sana begs.

Nayeon wishes she were less afraid. 

* * *

Fall descends rapidly upon them, and daylight creeps away from them by early evening. It’s _freezing_ outside, and Sana resents the way it flattens her hair but cannot brave the walk to meet Momo without a woolly hat tucked over her ears. 

She endures the frosty bite of the wind and detours to the campus store closest to the library. She beckons as many of Momo’s favourite snacks into her basket as quickly as she can without risking the blistering of her fingertips, and pockets them as soon as the cashier begins scanning her items. She better get extra cuddles for this.

Her teeth clatter as she pays and offers the young man a shaky _thank you_ , and scarpers back out into the cold to jog over to the entrance of the Learning Centre. She flashes the security guard her college ID and briskly paces up the stairs, out of breath and feeling wholly sorry for herself by the time she reaches Momo’s floor.

It nearly feels worth it when she spots Momo towards the back of the room. In the same damn chair she’s always sitting in headphones squashed into ears, Momo sings along happily to her music despite a girl seated directly opposite her, and god. At the sight of it, Sana is so _relieved_. Momo has been so withdrawn recently with the pressure of college getting to her, and it’s just so reassuring to witness these small glimpses of the Momo she loves, so unafraid to look goofy around others.

Sana nearly doesn’t want to interrupt with the serious head-nodding Momo’s got going on, but she can’t _help_ it. If she doesn’t dive into Momo’s lap right now and _squeeze_ her best friend it might very nearly just kill her. 

So she does exactly that.

Momo startles and almost catapults Sana across the room - the cold enveloping Sana an unwelcome third wheel. Momo is whining and begging Sana to stop while Sana, giggling and still breathless, peppers kisses all over her face. 

“ _Momoringgggg_ ,” Sana gushes, crushing her cheek against Momo’s and leeching some of her body heat. It doesn’t hit her until this moment how much she’s missed Momo.

Momo, however, is far less impressed with the way her night has developed. “You. Are. _Freezing_ _!_ ” Momo almost shrieks, public library be damned.

When Sana leans back to look at her best friend, she’s wearing her trademark pout with her big brown puppy eyes being put to some serious practice. It almost works on Sana, who adjusts to give her one last squeeze, all the while Momo grows distracted with the grocery bag discarded by their side.

“You brought goodies?” Momo gasps, bending straight over to grab it and tilting Sana completely off balance, who has to concede just to prevent herself from tipping over onto the floor.

“Yes,” Sana huffs, staring down at Momo with a frown, “not that you deserve them after that terrible greeting.”

Momo waves her off and is rooting through the bag quicker than Sana can start removing her coat. Not that Sana has ever cared before, it’s just not _them_ to bother with public appearances, but something is pestering Sana’s conscience to take a look around them. She knows how she and Momo must look.

There are not many seats this far into the corner, maybe around six or seven within a 30ft vicinity, but Sana does remember spotting a girl opposite Momo before she’d gotten so caught up in bombarding her. Her back has been to her this whole time. 

When Sana turns she _feels_ the colour draining from her face.

Looking as beautiful and as devastating as ever, Im Nayeon is staring back at her. 

Sana’s tongue feels heavy in her throat, bewitched by the sight of her, and there’s a moment of trepidation where she waits for Nayeon to open her mouth. 

Nothing comes.

Sana can see it in the way Nayeon’s eyes have narrowed, eyebrows pinched just slightly over the bridge of her nose, that Nayeon is in no rush to reveal their relations to Momo. It’s plausibly the only time that both Nayeon and Sana have been on the same page about keeping their worlds apart. 

Nayeon has never been a fan of mixing with any of Sana’s friends, not even when presented with the offer of joining them all on a night out, but this isn’t just anyone. This is Momo, her _best_ friend, who Sana has been lying to for months about the very idea that she and Nayeon even know each other - and Sana isn’t ready to unload all that right now.

It’s been weeks since she’s been confronted with one of Nayeon’s looming glares, but Sana has received the message, loud, clear, and for the first time, wholly accepted. This isn’t going to be a case where Sana pleads for Nayeon to open up to her circle. 

Momo, ignorant to the exchange happening in front of her, is mumbling around a mouthful of Cheetos about Sana helping her with one of her research questions. Nayeon’s eyes are wiped immediately of anything scathing and resume their place in her book as if she had never been doing anything but, and Sana is breathless with anxiety as she turns back to face Momo.

“Of course,” she says, exhaling the shakiness out of her voice. “But only if you share with me.”

Instinctively, Sana moves to drape herself back over Momo but hesitates clumsily. Correcting herself, Sana chooses to pull up a chair next to Momo instead. Momo herself seems surprised but ultimately unbothered, and heaps her workload into Sana’s lap and dives deeper into her bag of chips. “I think I read the fifth one wrong,” Momo explains with a full mouth, careless with how unnatural Sana is behaving right now.

Sana can’t stop herself from peeping at Nayeon. She can feel her own cheeks burning hotly but can chalk that up to the cold. However, she cannot ignore the tension the same way Nayeon is, and twists her body away from Momo and unlocks her phone.

 _Want us to leave?_ 17:17

Nayeon’s phone lights up from across from her, and Sana attempts to gauge her expression when she tilts her phone up to view it. In the end, Nayeon’s hair is covering too much of her face for Sana to decipher anything and just hopes Nayeon isn’t upset with her.

Nayeon drops her phone back down onto the arm of her chair and shakes her head shortly.

Sana feels so _seen_ , and the humiliation is unbearable. Of _course_ Nayeon is conscious of Sana’s staring problem. How couldn’t she be?

It’s Nayeon who eventually leaves first. After around thirty minutes of absolutely excruciating silence between the three of them (Momo half asleep leaning on Sana’s shoulder, and Sana trying too hard not to stare at the girl across from them), Nayeon stands to pack up her things. What Sana doesn’t expect is for Momo to stir, smile at Nayeon like they’re friendly with one another, and dip her head in acknowledgement as Nayeon brushes past them. 

Part of Sana feels lied to. “Do you know her or something?” Sana whispers as they both watch Nayeon leave, and Momo shrugs from beside her. 

“No. Not really. She’s here a lot,” Momo explains, “we both usually are.”

Sana considers that thoughtfully, wondering why the idea of that bothers her so much.

* * *

Sana has a problem.

In fact, Sana has two problems. 

Sana needs to tell Momo. That’s the first issue, which ties her into the second issue. Sana has come to the infuriating realisation that she is jealous of her best friend. 

She feels like a fool.

It shouldn’t matter that she has feelings for Nayeon, that doesn’t warrant the envy that stirs whenever she loops back to the memory of bumping into Nayeon in the library. Momo might not have mentioned Nayeon before, but that private smile she’s reserved for Nayeon speaks volumes. And Sana, idiotically, is jealous.

Whatever interactions Momo and Nayeon have or have had in the past, are theirs to own. It’s pointless of Sana to worry about the nature of them, but her insecurities do not share the same sentiment. 

Her mind runs away from her, escapes to a world where if Sana had never met Nayeon, would Nayeon have taken interest in Momo? 

_Has_ she taken an interest in Momo? 

Her scepticism drifts further. _Did Nayeon choose Sana to get closer to Momo?_

 _No,_ Sana shakes herself out of it. She refuses to be the kind of person who sabotages her relationships based on paranoia. She needs to talk to Momo, to find out if there’s an attachment there on Momo’s part, but more critically, there’s a confession of her own she needs to make. 

Sana dials Momo’s number ready to catastrophize over the very idea of what this could mean for them if Momo has a crush too, before realising she’s skipping several steps and has to gain Nayeon’s blessing first. An issue needing remedying fast.

Hanging up the phone before it connected the call, Sana searches for Nayeon’s contact instead. Nayeon has barely had the opportunity to answer before Sana’s rattling on about how there’s a thing she needs from Nayeon and it’s important for Nayeon to come over so they could talk. 

Nayeon obliges, which shouldn’t be surprising considering how agreeable she’s been these days, but her doubt is resistant. 

Talking, as it turns out? Apparently not so much on Nayeon’s agenda.

There must’ve been a miscommunication somewhere because Sana opens the door only to be enveloped by Nayeon’s mouth, her delicate fingers sliding beneath her ears. She’s doing that hypnotic thing with her tongue again, and Nayeon is pushing her _back_ , back against the bed until her knees give way and she finds herself blinking up at Nayeon, enslaved by the wonder of her.

Sana thinks, _wait._

Nayeon makes light work of removing Sana’s shirt, and the thought of Momo is smoke in the wind.

Sana stops thinking. She’s pretty sure she stops _breathing_ when Nayeon’s lips meet her chest.

Sex with feelings is a catalyst for disaster. 

* * *

Climbing into the shower, Sana’s phone notifies her of a strange text she’s received from her mother, followed by an automated text from the campus post office.

 _  
_ _Mama <3 _ _  
_ _Make sure you pick up your dress!! Hang it up ASAP so it doesn’t crease!!!!! Tell me if it fits!!_

 _DHL_ _  
_ _DHL Express 990117086901 from OSAKA, JAPAN delivered to your local post office Mon Oct 13 2020 at 16:46. Signature required._

Oh.

Throwing her dirty clothes back over her head and making a mad lap around her apartment, Sana leaps for her bag before dashing out of the door — because the post office is a ten-minute walk away and it closes in _fi_ _ve_.

She’s down the first flight of steps in her residence hall before she remembers that she hadn’t turned the shower off, yet remains entirely forgetful of Nayeon left asleep atop tousled sheets right up until she makes it to the office doors. For once, Sana muses, Nayeon was an afterthought. 

She’s squeezing inside the door just before closing time, apologising profusely to the lady at the desk and giving her the best ‘ _please believe me when I say my parcel really couldn’t have waited until tomorrow’_ eyes she can muster.

She feels sweaty and gross and must look as much too, because the lady seems pitiful when she requests Sana’s ID. She passes it across the counter and checks the calendar on her phone while her parcel is searched for, which verifies her fear that _yes,_ she had forgotten about her aunt’s wedding on the 17th. 

Her flight is in three days, and she’d let it slip from her mind entirely. She’s lucky her mom had sent her that text because she doubts she would’ve been in any rush to collect her mysterious parcel with her newfound personal crisis consuming all conscious thought. 

The postal worker returns with Sana’s package and hands it over with a smile, asking her to sign by her name and is wishing her a good evening before Sana has even received a pen. She knows a dismissal when she hears one.

Apologising once more, Sana makes her exit and barely acknowledges the office doors locking shut behind her, stilling to catch her breath and gawk at the box in her hands. 

She refuses to let the panic get to her until after she’s home again and showered. 

* * *

Her hair is wet, not having the concentration or _focus_ to have dried it beforehand. She begins scrutinising her appearance in the mirror as soon as she’s sobered her thoughts enough to put on some underwear, and stares at the marks Nayeon has littered her body with.

They fill her with a sense of belonging. Nayeon may not be hers but she is Nayeon’s if she wants her, but by contrast, the bruising… they’re also the source of her anxiety.

Her mind circles back to the box she’s parked next to Nayeon on the bed. 

Sana inhales deeply, willing herself to _chill out_ , and turns to unbox her aunt’s favoured bridesmaid look.

To her aunt's credit, it’s _beautiful_. It’s more of a gown than a dress, silk-like and gorgeous to the touch, but it’s low cut neckline means Sana may have a lot of explaining to do.

She’s dropping her towel and pulling the dress up her legs and over her torso when she catches Nayeon’s eyes in the mirror, but doesn’t have the capacity to dwell on the way Nayeon is watching her. Because right there, just above her cleavage, reveals a hickey the dress doesn’t have the reach to hide.

“How do you cover up hickeys?” Sana groans, looking over her shoulder at Nayeon who’s laying on her bed with a sluggishness about her. 

Nayeon shrugs. “How would I know?”

Sana is back facing the mirror, running her finger over the purplish mark on her chest. “How’re you covering up the marks I leave?”

Again, Nayeon shrugs. 

Sana stares at her through the mirror and then swings around. “Are you ignoring me?”

Nayeon shakes her head, awfully interested in one of Sana’s pillows. “No. I don’t know,” she says, picking at a frayed strand of cotton. She’s reluctant to meet Sana’s pointed stare. “I’ve never hidden them before.”

The confession is unexpected. 

“And she doesn’t ask questions when she sees you naked?” Sana challenges, moving closer to the bed to get a better read of Nayeon’s expression. “Does she think _she_ gave you those marks?”

“No.” Nayeon’s giving Sana the same look she was given at the library. “She’s never seen them.”

“How _couldn’t_ she have seen them?” Something’s not clicking. Nayeon hasn’t got the type of body you look away from when confronted with nudity. “It’s not like they’re subtle.”

Nayeon huffs, becoming rattled over Sana’s prying, for asking questions she doesn’t have answers to. “We don’t sleep together,” Nayeon snaps, her posture tensing. “She has no reason to see me naked.”

Sana doesn’t know if the information that she is the only one Nayeon is sleeping with makes her feel better or worse. Her chest tightens regardless, and she’s not sure if she’s going to be able to pretend that the newly unpleasant, rigid feel in the air isn’t there. “Can you google it, then? How to cover a hickey? My mom is going to kill me if she sees this.”

Nayeon remains hard, but nods mutely. Sana turns and watches her pick up her phone through the mirror, wondering if Nayeon and her girlfriend not sleeping together anymore is something she should feel guilty, or excited about. 

* * *

The panic has died down. Nayeon found a home remedy on the internet involving a cold spoon and a lot of patience, which has muted the colouration enough to cover with minimal makeup. There are too many secrets in her life, all piling up at once. 

Sana swallows heavily and lets a sigh slip from her throat. Settling her head against Nayeon’s chest, Sana listens to the beating of Nayeon’s heart and the beating of her own. 

She allows herself a few minutes of uninterrupted thought. To find peace within herself.

Alarmingly, Sana isn’t even upset with herself for wanting Nayeon. In truth, if she was being frank, it feels kind of nice to like someone this way. She’s always enjoyed crushing on people, Nayeon isn’t really an exception. It’s always been exciting, the flirtation and temptation, the back and forth. It was a game of risk and reward, really, and Sana enjoyed the thrill. _Usually_.

This is Nayeon, though. No matter how enjoyable the experience of liking someone is, Sana cannot crave to be the girlfriend of someone who already has one. 

It’ll be _hard_. There’s a worry that the conflict she feels isn’t palpable enough for her to _want_ to tamper with these feelings, to squander them, because Nayeon is still _Nayeon._

Inhaling deeply, Nayeon’s aura blankets Sana’s unrest, providing something of a comfort.

It’s a hard sensation to describe, how fulfilling having so much affection and adoration for someone is, how the butterflies don’t even bother her anymore because it feels _good_ , it feels nice to like Nayeon. She may not be able to have Nayeon in every way she wants, but she’ll hold the feeling close. One day she may not be in a position to feel them anymore at all.

Heaving her body onto its side, Sana meets Nayeon’s curious gaze. “Would it be okay if I told my friend about you?” 

She’s met with a frown. “Why?”

“I –” Sana feels stumped. “I mean. Momo’s my best friend. I really hate lying to her.”

“If you don’t ever bring it up then you don’t have to lie,” Nayeon replies with her eyes downcast, avoiding looking directly into Sana’s.

“I mean, I’ve never mentioned you specifically, and not at all since after we slept together the first time, but I… I don’t know. I keep almost accidentally mentioning it, not anything crazy just things you’ve said that have made me laugh, or, you know, places we’ve been together that I know she’d like too, and. I don’t wanna risk her finding out I’ve been dishonest with her for months. I just wanna be able to _talk_ to her.”

“Wait.” Nayeon pauses. “Didn’t you say you’d already spoken to her about me a couple of weeks ago?”

“Well, no. I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I realised I didn’t have any way of mentioning you without admitting what we do together, and this is what I’m talking about. I wanna be able to talk freely with her.”

“Sana,” Nayeon starts, a sense of guilt in her voice, “if you tell her you’re sleeping with someone it won’t be long until she figures out who. And then what? What if she tells someone?”

“She wouldn’t,” Sana blurts, wishing she could explain this better. “She’s not like that.” Momo is harmless, and she doesn’t have anyone _but_ Sana in her circle to spread rumours to anyway, which is part of why it’s so important for Sana not to jeopardise their relationship. 

“I don’t know that. People expose shit all the time forgetting they were ever secrets in the first place, and if Jeongyeon ever finds out, I…” Nayeon holds her breath, and Sana holds hers too, because as much as she understands where Nayeon is coming from it’s still not _fair._

“Please,” Sana stresses, a tightness to her throat she’s determined to push through, “trust me when I tell you Momo isn’t like most people. I know you don’t know her, but _Nayeon._ I don’t want to keep this secret from her.”

Nayeon darts upwards and shifts away from Sana. Her voice is strained, and it sounds a lot like Nayeon is trying really hard not to become emotional. “Then there’ll be no secret. We can just stop.” 

“Nayeon, that’s not...” Sana reaches out to place a hand on the small of her back, but Nayeon flinches away. 

Sana drops her hand, defeated. “Let’s just forget I said anything.”

“So we can fight about this again later down the line?” Nayeon snorts, treading across the room and collecting her clothes to begin dressing. “I’m sorry, I just. I think this will be better. I don’t want you falling out with your friend over me,” she says, emotion bubbling beneath the surface of her tongue. 

“Nayeon, slow _down._ Let’s just… we can come back to this another time and just review it. There’s no need to—”

“N-no,” Nayeon stammers, making an effort to control her tone. “I _can’t_.”

Nayeon doesn’t make any real attempt at putting on her shoes correctly, standing on the back of her heels. Her shirt hangs from her shoulder limply, but it’s something about Nayeon’s demeanour, the atmosphere, that reminds Sana of the very first time Nayeon ran out on her. Piercing words moving in a fit of terror, where all Sana could do was watch. 

The parallel haunts her. 

“Don’t contact me again.”

The door clicks shut behind Nayeon before Sana can think to do anything but stare after her, stunned. What just happened?

_Had she just ruined everything?_

Sana hears herself whimper before she registers it as a sound that she’s made. 

Maybe if she blinks her eyes enough her vision will clear, revealing Nayeon laying soundly beside her just as she had been moments before.

* * *

In a confusing twist of events, when Nayeon shows up at Jeongyeon’s door the following evening Jeongyeon is actually at home and happy to see her.

Part of Nayeon is affronted by Jeongyeon’s presence. She had let herself into Jeongyeon’s dorm, twice the size of her own, with the intention of slinking into Jeongyeon’s bedroom and crawling straight under the duvet. Pitifully, Nayeon isn’t really sure what to do next, not with Jeongyeon smiling up at her and beckoning her over from the couch.

Jeongyeon’s dorm is warm for a change, the room lit dimly by the tv and the lamp in the hallway. There’s a lingering smell of food, home-cooked judging by the mess on the kitchen counter, and something about Jeongyeon’s dorm looking so _lived_ in, so cosy and homely, has Nayeon’s stomach twisting.

It’s the polar opposite of how it usually is, and Nayeon’s not sure how she feels about it.

It feels like a lifetime ago when they sat in Nayeon’s room at her parents, wrapped together scrolling through pages and pages of potential colleges for their applications. Jeongyeon cared most for the research programs they offered, but Nayeon spent most of her time looking up on-campus accommodation. It was different for her.

Nayeon had built her entire fantasy of college around the concept of freedom, of not having to listen out for her parent’s footsteps before she leaned in to give her girlfriend a kiss. Being able to exist in a space with Jeongyeon without anxiety had been her dream since the moment Jeongyeon had asked Nayeon to consider going to college with her. 

Of course, it was always going to be a yes. Without Jihyo around, Nayeon needed security more than she had before, and once they settled on their first choice college Nayeon had put in a request for one of the bigger rooms on behalf of them both. 

Students weren’t permitted to live together, which meant despite planning on rooming together at Jeongyeon’s, Nayeon had to apply for her own. The cheapest option was shared housing — shared bathrooms, shared kitchens, and living rooms. All Nayeon had to call her own was the bed she slept on. Sana is housed in a residential hall but has her own kitchen and bathroom. Jeongyeon has her own everything. 

Nayeon had so many plans for their space. She planned to pack it with their own furniture, decorate the walls and shelves with pictures and mementoes. Jeongyeon’s room was going to be her favourite place in the world, but things didn’t develop the way she had planned. 

It’s almost always empty. Devoid of life, of people. The fact that Nayeon is the main occupant here means she’s almost always greeted by darkness and the imminent threat of frostbite. The fridge is _never_ stocked, and Jeongyeon’s open-plan living space seems allergic to furniture. 

It’s never been the sight that Nayeon is looking at now, and there’s no way Jeongyeon doesn't sense her apprehension. 

“Come ‘ere,” Jeongyeon calls, tapping the sofa beside her. “There’s an old episode of _Greys_ on TV.”

Jeongyeon isn’t one for pet names, but she’s affectionate in other ways. She wraps an arm around Nayeon the second Nayeon collapses onto the sofa beside her and kisses her temple firmly as if to say _I missed you._

There are tears in her eyes before she realises, and Jeongyeon is bringing Nayeon into her lap and swarming her with questions _. Are you okay? What happened? Talk to me._

Nayeon has never really been good at talking and it shows. Jeongyeon is puzzled about what to do with her.

Jihyo was always better at this than them. Talking, that is. Jihyo and Jeongyeon’s methods complemented each other because while Jihyo untangled her emotional baggage Jeongyeon would offer her body, somewhere Nayeon could tangle herself in. 

Besides, it was best Jihyo did the soothing. Jeongyeon always sort of panicked when Nayeon cried, stressing about what words or advice she could give to make it better when all Nayeon really needed was her presence. 

(The night Nayeon first took her need for physical comfort from Jeongyeon too far was the night of their first kiss.)

_Talk to me, Nayeon. What’s going on?_

Nayeon watches Jeongyeon watching her, eyes wide with concern, like a deer ready to spook. Nayeon hates putting herself out there, hates needing to rely on somebody else for consolation. But this is Jeongyeon. She trusts Jeongyeon.

Taking a large gulp of air to try to stop herself from crying, Nayeon leans into Jeongyeon and kisses her. 

It says, _I love you. I missed you too. I’m sorry._

* * *

Nayeon doesn’t trust Jeongyeon. 

She isn’t sure when it started, but yesterday, when Jeongyeon slipped off to use the bathroom, Nayeon’s heart had crept to her throat at the realisation that Jeongyeon left her phone behind. 

She’s a complete hypocrite for it, and she hates herself.

It had been lighting up all night. Constantly, and Jeongyeon’s nervous-excited energy reminded her so much of her own when they first started dating. The personal smiles she’d exchange with her phone whenever Jeongyeon had texted, the blushing. Not just that, either. Nayeon had never known Jeongyeon to silence her phone before. In fact, Jeongyeon used to pick a fight with Nayeon because hers was perpetually on mute; she was _always_ missing Jeongyeon’s phone calls. 

And yet there her girlfriend’s phone was, soundlessly blinking up at her. 

Nayeon didn’t snoop. She refused to go there, but what she couldn’t deny was the instinct to check it, her fixation on Jeongyeon’s phone lasting right up until the moment her girlfriend had returned. 

And that’s a problem. 

It’s definitely not enough to go on, and Nayeon is doing her best _not_ to escalate a transient thought into actual doubt, but it would explain a few things. Jeongyeon’s good moods that Nayeon hadn’t put her in, the new perfume, the unexpected softness with Nayeon like she’s overcompensating. She’d been _cooking_ , for god’s sake. She’s never known Jeongyeon to pick up a spatula in her _life_ , she’d always had her father to feed her. 

In the absence of evidence, Nayeon decided to let it go, but the feeling of distrust lingered. 

Hours later, Jeongyeon checks in on Nayeon in the shower, and this is where Nayeon’s suspicions forced their way back into her thoughts. Here Nayeon stands, naked in front of her with no real way to hide any bruises gifted from Sana, and Jeongyeon _doesn’t. even. look at her._

 _There’s definitely a first for everything,_ Nayeon shakes, part of herself relieved, _but why this?_

Nayeon can’t remember the last time Jeongyeon had walked in on her naked and decided not to do anything about it. Without so much of a glance in Nayeon’s direction, Jeongyeon acknowledged her only in words and immediately left. No remarks, no flirtation no matter how baseless, _nothing_.

There’s a brief sting of insecurity boiling in her throat.

Objectively, Nayeon knows she has a nice body. Whether people find her attractive has never credited her self-esteem, but it’s always been nice to know that people have liked what they were looking at. On her bad days, she doesn’t necessarily agree with it, but even Nayeon can admit, in high-school especially, that people often mistook their attraction to her body as an attraction to _her_.

In Nayeon and Jeongyeon’s entire history, from friends to lovers to girlfriends to whatever they are now, one thing that has been cemented since the start is that Jeongyeon had liked her body. Always. It’s one of their constants, but that, too, Nayeon is beginning to doubt.

It kind of pisses her off, actually. They haven’t slept together in months, but that has been entirely _Nayeon’s_ doing. Jeongyeon had definitely knocked on the door a few times, and the idea that she may no longer find Nayeon attractive in that way is mortifying.

If Jeongyeon didn’t want her, then what was left? 

Jeongyeon had admitted she didn’t want to love Nayeon the way she did, but was helpless to stop herself. It stung, but Jeongyeon had always communicated with Nayeon despite how her honesty could hurt. Nayeon had mostly ignored that admission, ignored it because if she truly allowed Jeongyeon to carry that thought they may never have spoken again. In the end, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Not ending up alone? And now with the absence of Sana… 

She’s in a pair of Jeongyeon’s PJs when she joins her in the bedroom, sitting cross-legged with a bowl of noodles in her lap. She makes eye-contact with Nayeon in the middle of a monstrous mouthful, and even now, years later, Nayeon wonders where the habit of eating like goblin came from. Her family are the epitome of grace, and then there’s Jeongyeon, who’s… Jeongyeon.

She’s been staring a while, distracted by the sight of her. Jeongyeon stiffens, sensing animosity, and immediately becomes defensive. “You said you weren’t hungry, so I’m not sharing,” Jeongyeon slurps greedily, gesturing to the bowl in her lap.

Nayeon couldn’t care less about the noodles. “Do you not find me attractive anymore?”

Jeongyeon chokes. “What?”

“Why do you never try to have sex with me anymore?”

Jeongyeon’s focus skips down towards her food bowl, and then back up to Nayeon, heart stammering in her chest at the feel of a trick question. “I mean, I’m on my period, but if you need me to…”

“No, I- That’s okay. I just thought, you know… I just wanted to know,” Nayeon stammers uncomfortably, regretting having asked.

Jeongyeon watches her, frowning, and taps the bed beside her.

The short walk to the bed feels ridiculously humiliating, and Nayeon slumps against the headboard beside her just to hide how embarrassed she is.

Jeongyeon motions for Nayeon to lean on her shoulder, and uses one hand to scoop ramen into her mouth while the other hand comes up to rest atop Nayeon’s head. It’s almost impossible to thread your fingers through someone’s hair when it’s this wet, so Jeongyeon is forced to do the next best thing and runs her fingers over it, slicking Nayeon’s hair backwards. 

Nayeon kind of feels like she’s being petted, but it’s still nice. 

* * *

A few days have passed since Nayeon had almost accused Jeongyeon of cheating. At the end of the day, the reason Nayeon ever loved her so much was that Jeongyeon was nothing like her. Of the two of them, only Nayeon could betray someone the way she has been and then reel at the idea that she may not have been the only one.

Jeongyeon isn’t Nayeon. 

She’s always been kind, to a fault, even when Nayeon has been at her most spiteful. 

Once Nayeon let it go the tension had eased, and Jeongyeon began to relax around her again. They fall into a new routine of relearning how to move around each other, not often interacting unless out of necessity, but the company has been appreciated regardless. 

It’d been a long time since they’d spent this much time in each other’s presence, usually limited to moments instead of days. It’s been nice, or was nice, for a while, but too much of anything can become a bad thing. 

It’s three days in when Jeongyeon and Nayeon first squabble. It’s stupid, and Nayeon doesn’t even remember what they had been fighting over, but words were exchanged and Nayeon had felt her tongue strike like a lash to the wrist when things got particularly heated. 

Jeongyeon had hurled her fair share of digs, but Nayeon was always the one to take things too far, causing a riptide between them.

It’s pathetic how much space they need away from each other as a couple in order to operate, but the silence between them does help temper their emotions. Nayeon alone has far too many of them.

On the fifth day, Nayeon learned a few things.

  1. Sana is incredible at following instructions, and
  2. Nayeon wishes she wasn’t.



After obsessing over Jeongyeons’ phone for a few days, Nayeon then began to fixate on her own. It started subconsciously – she’d illuminate her home screen every now and then to check her notifications, feeling an absence of some kind. Then, it became more frequent, every twenty minutes or so she’d tap on that black screen with nothing to show for it, and would kick herself wondering _why._

“Are you waiting on a text from someone?” Jeongyeon asks, eyebrows raised at Nayeon’s frustration.

It had slipped Nayeon’s mind until then, that she was the one with a secret. “No,” she barks, framing a bit of a lie. She won't admit to expecting a text when she hadn’t even realised that she was doing it.

Jeongyeon screws up her face, “It was just a question. No need to say it like that.”

“Say it like _what?_ ”

Jeongyeon gestures towards Nayeon incredulously. “Like _that_ , the way you’re talking to me right now. What gives?”

“Nothing gives,” Nayeon snaps, “leave it alone.”

Jeongyeon expels a heavy sigh, more to control her tone than anything else, and then says, “I’m not doing this with you again. I’m going out, don’t be here when I get back.”

Nayeon sits stubbornly in the same spot until Jeongyeon is long gone, and then leaves in a huff, back to her own dorm. It’s a cold walk. Nayeon refuses to borrow Jeongyeon’s jacket purely out of spite and shivers the entire way home.

* * *

Frozen stiff, it takes an obscene amount of effort steadying her hands, keys clattering against the lock. Light spills in from the hallway as the door swings open, and Nayeon pauses as if the very room itself repels her. 

Looking at this small, gloomy space, a lump comes to form in the base of Nayeon’s throat. It’s been a long time since she’s come home and realised she has nowhere else to go. As the door sweeps closed behind her, Nayeon is cloaked in darkness. It all catches up to her then, tears hot and full of hurt. The grief of losing two people in one week comes pouring out of her. 

She doesn’t deserve Jeongyeon, and she definitely doesn’t deserve Sana. 

With loneliness bleeding from every inch of her room, Nayeon succumbs to the sensation of drowning. She doesn’t remember crawling onto her bed, though feels the tears dripping down her face as she shudders, sobbing into her pillow. 

Alone, Nayeon finally faces the repercussions, the toll that the last week has taken on her. Wickedly, her thoughts linger on Sana. 

She misses her. She misses Sana more than she has the right to, and her heart swells with agony. She resents herself for being so destructive, for ruining something she wished she didn’t even need. The acknowledgement itself that her connection with Sana runs deeper than a just means of having fun – of passing time – stings, and Nayeon weeps noiselessly into the bed.

She spends what feels like hours like this, body humming in anguish, still. 

It’s not until morning cycles back around that Nayeon snaps herself out of it, steels her nerves and decides to salvage at least something out of the havoc she’s wreaked. 

Furiously swiping the tears from under her eyes, Nayeon smears her mascara and colours her cheeks black. Its doubtful showering will help reduce the swelling of her face, but at the very least she can cleanse herself of her sorrow, of her pain, and leave the shower renewed.

It’s all very optimistic and ideal, but Nayeon has lived most of her life faking it until she made it, and she doesn’t intend on breaking a winning formula now. 

It’ll be hard, getting back into rhythm in the days to come, but Nayeon refuses to let her own stupidity break her. She thinks, just because she’s ruined something of hers doesn’t mean she’s going to be the ruin of other people, and dresses quickly and leaves her room before she has the chance to bottle it.

She almost turns back when she makes it to the Learning Centre, humanity’s self-serving instincts pulling at her gut to turn home. She won’t. Nayeon is choosing to do better, and her feet carry her to the second floor before she has the time to second guess herself, again. 

It’s all a little too real when she sees Momo, tucked into the corner they share together. Momo seems to sense she’s got company, and for a brief moment, Nayeon feels bile bubble in her stomach when Momo looks up and squints at her, taking off her headphones. 

The stage is hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nayeon and momo are about to have an actual conversation. god damn
> 
> (btw i didn't go to school in america so if the whole dorm room thing isn't the way you're used to that's why)
> 
> also i made a twitter!!!! not sure if i’ll use it but it’s there for anyone to yell at if u feel up to it @stvckonyoo


End file.
